Hedge funds in the 1990s and 2000s were touted as the darlings of Wall Street, attracting trillions of dollars in assets under management. Then, from 2018 to 2019, evidence mounted that hedge fund managers might be the captains of a sinking ship, one that had already struck an iceberg and couldn't take on much more water.
Fast forward to 2021, and hedge funds weathered the recent volatility of 2020 remarkably well, particularly considering the 2020 financial crisis. Thus, hedge funds are, once again, making their mark on Wall Street. These ups and downs lead us to ask: will hedge funds still be around in 10 years?
Key Takeaways Once high-flying alternative investments, hedge funds lagged behind much of the market over the past several years.
More recently, however, hedge funds have proved resilient throughout the volatility caused by the 2020 crisis and are attracting significant investor attention.
Overall, the consensus is that hedge funds will continue to grow but will adapt to lower fees, greater use of technology, and increased access to retail investors.
Understanding Hedge Funds
It isn't easy to claim hedge funds are dying out or thriving because hedge funds don't really have a set definition. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) says the term "hedge fund" first popped up in 1949 but that the term "is not statutorily defined." The SEC gives "selected definitions of a hedge fund," but no universally accepted meaning. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) argues hedge fund-style instruments have been around 2,500 years and tries to define them with four attributes: a focus on absolute (rather than relative) returns plus the uses of hedging, arbitrage, and leverage.
This general strategy of hedge funds, so defined, is clearly not dying out. Plenty of successful investment vehicles use hedging, arbitrage, and leverage. Plenty of successful fund managers are compensated based on performance, not on a fixed percentage of assets.
For simplicity and clarity, today's hedge funds can be grouped by a few characteristics: they are privately organized as investment partnerships or offshore companies; they are subject to less regulation; and they build their investor bases with high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and institutional investors.
Hedges are not likely to go away, and it seems increasingly likely that the 1980s- and 1990s-style hedge fund management will adapt to survive more volatile times.
How Hedge Funds Have Weathered Recent Volatility
According to Hedgeweek, investor allocations to hedge funds fell for the third consecutive year in 2020. EY reported in its annual "Global Alternative Fund Survey" that in 2018, hedge funds made up 40% of allocations. That figure dropped to 33% in 2019, and to 23% in 2020. Why was there such a steep decline?
For several years, according to EY, other investments have shown better performance than hedge funds, such as private equity (e.g., venture capital), real estate and, credit. Nevertheless, although hedge fund strategies have shrunk as a proportion of investor portfolios, they exhibited impressive outperformance during the crisis in 2020. Painting an even more rosy picture for hedge funds, Preqins "Future of Alternatives 2025" study predicts that hedge funds will surge over the next few years as actively-managed hedge fund strategies perform well in a volatile environment.
The Effect of the Coronavirus Epidemic
The coronavirus epidemic changed the work practices of fund managers. Portfolio construction, investor engagement, due diligence, and talent acquisition were all curtailed as business waned and more people worked from home or not at all. The result was that alternative investment managers relied on technology, automation, digitalization, and outsourcing to serve clients. According to EY, the strength in operations during this uncertain period has shined a light on future possibilities via enhanced investment and leveraging of data, technology, and remote working capabilities, resulting in many managers re-imagining the future work environment.
This factor is encouraging the optimistic outlook for alternative investments and hedge funds. Particularly, EY reports that investments in environment, social, and governance almost doubled over the past year. This is a growing area for investment that is gaining visibility partly due to the social problems that have come increasingly to light during the epidemicfor example, inequality and racial bias. However, EYs survey also found that although diversity appears to be a priority of corporations, less than 25% of hedge fund managers consider improving ethnic and gender diversity one of their top three priorities.
Besides ESG, another cultural phenomenon that gained steam during the pandemic is the democratization of investing online. That is how meme stocks and meme crypto tokens emerged to invest contrary to what hedge funds shorted. GameStop and AMC are two high profile stories about hedge fund bets gone wrong and their losses experiences at the expense of the crowd.
The Next Decade for Hedge Funds
What does the next 10 years look like for hedge funds? The recent technology disruption and global pandemic have shown the hedge fund industry to be highly adaptable and resilient. Tom Kehoe, Global Head of Research and Communications for the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), sees two trends emerging regarding hedge funds over the next few years.
The first is that hedge funds will respond to the demand from investors and policymakers to incorporate sustainability, climate change, and social concerns into their investment products. The second trend is that hedge fund firms will increasingly use technology, such as machine learning, big data, and ultra-high frequent trading (HFT). Technologies like these may lower costs because technology is more efficient and less expensive than human employees.
Another possibility is that there may be a loosening of restrictions concerning who is allowed to invest in hedge funds. To date, most funds require large (often six figures or more) initial investments and are only able to accredited investors and HNWIs. However, lower barriers to entry are already on the horizon with publicly traded hedge funds and retail-oriented funds that have far smaller minimums.
In quantitative terms, Preqin predicts that global alternative assets will remain the second-largest alternative asset class after private equity and will reach $4.3 trillion by 2025. A senior research associate at Prequin stated, Hedge funds proved their risk mitigation strategies through the pandemic-induced market crash this year, reminding investors why hedging is valuable.
The CFA Society of New York, which cohosted an event with the AIMA in October 2020 called "The Future of Hedge Funds, concluded the following: "Hedge funds offered a unique and valuable way for investors to access strategies, returns, and alpha that are not typically accessible through more traditional structures, such as long only, and are highly accretive to more traditional portfolios. Though incentives are currently aligned, there is still room for greater alignment between general and limited partners, and the hedge fund industry continues to move in that direction.
Saoirse Ronan, Ciaran Hinds and Jim Norton co-star in an utterly spell-biding new staging of Arthur Miller's classic play The Crucible on Broadway. Playing Abigail Williams, the ruthless teenage manipulator who sends half a town to the gallows, Ronan's new role is about as far from Brooklyn's sensitive Eilis Lacey as it's possible to get. Cahir O'Doherty reviews Ronans sterling Broadway debut.
From the moment she first appears in Arthur Miller's classic play The Crucible, it's obvious to the audience that Abigail Williams, the teenage girl with a glint of steel in her gaze, spells trouble. In fact, she spells it out in capital letters.
As played by Saoirse Ronan, 21, Abigail is a force of nature, the kind of nature that knocks down anyone in her path. Abigail, we learn, is the former maid to farmer John Proctor (Ben Whishaw) and his wife Elizabeth (Sophie Okonedo) and was instantly (and understandably) relived of her duties when it became clear she was having an affair with John.
It doesn't take the audience long to figure out that Abigail has not, as they say, moved on. Instead she has asked Tituba, a kindly black slave from Barbados, to perform a voodoo spell to kill Elizabeth so that she can take her place at John's side.
So in one sense Ronan's playing a kind of 17th century mean girl, about as far from her recent Oscar nominated turn as young emigrant Eilis Lacey in Brooklyn as it's possible to get.
But in another sense she's just a heartbroken lover who was cruelly misled by an older and much more experienced man, one who didn't even have the strength himself to break things off before they got too heated (or the strength to resist the temptation in the first place).
How you feel about Abigail, how you feel about what happens to her and what she does to extract her revenge are really at the heart of the play and this production. From the outset Miller doesn't make it easy on the audience, reminding us that, no matter how ruthless Abigail becomes, there are multiple sides to this tragic story.
Things are set in motion early when Abigail invites some of the local girls to join her in her magic ritual deep in the woods to remove her romantic rival. But they are spotted mid-act by Reverend Parris, the busy-body minister of Salem's church. Parris breaks up their ritual only to discover that one of the girls, Ruth Putnam, has fallen into a weird and unshakable trance.
Is she bewitched? Is she in shock? Or is she just a victim of the hysteria with which her community responds to magic? Abigail knows the truth about Ruth, but she waits until she's unobserved to command her friend to snap out of it.
As the play progresses Ronan shows us some unforgettable glints of the hard steel that's lurking just below Abigails innocent schoolgirl demeanor in moments that are both unexpected and unsettling. Smart as a whip, she's used to finding the strings and pulling them in any gathering, and when she's not in control she's plotting how to take control.
It would be easy for Ronan to make her character a one note out and out villain, but instead she gives us someone who is unmoored by the ferocity of her own desire. Lust can be almost as potent a force as love Ronan reminds us, and Abigails passion for John Proctor is complicated by the simple fact that it's just as molten and returned.
The heat that erupts between Ronan and Whishaw onstage shows us what no one else in Salem knows: that all of the calamity that's about to fall on the town has it's origins in a thwarted affair. Whishaw's Proctor is both attracted and repulsed by Abigail's erotic intensity, seeing the danger but unable to stop himself.
But Reverend Parris' meddling has already set the events in motion, since he's called in Reverend John Hale, a sanctimonious witch-finder who's involvement creates a cycle of accusation and persecution that can't be stopped.
Rumors have reached the village that the girls have conjured demons and the public won't be satisfied until everyone involved is brought to trial and hanged. Of course it's Abigail who first recognizes the power she has just been handed. All she has to do is claim that anyone in the community is a witch to have them tried and executed.
It's not long before Elizabeth Proctor finds herself named in court. This is Abigails endgame, and Ronan shows us every side of her manipulating, controlling persona. Watching her, the way she riles up the town and plays to all their deepest prejudices (the better to suit her own ends) is to understand why some people find Donald Trump such a magnetic figure. Abigail is remorseless. She plays on other people's weaknesses like a piano. She can get them to say and do things that they know are not right.
In the background characters like the elderly Giles Corey (Jim Norton) help put a human face on Abigails rapidly increasing number of victims. Giles is a simple man who cannot understand his wife's interest in reading books, and because he says so he accidentally casts a cloud of suspicion over her until she finds herself fatally accused.
Norton, one of Broadway's most dependably brilliant actors, brings humor, humanity and great pathos to each scene he appears in and helps anchor the whole production. He's powerfully assisted by Ciaran Hinds who plays Deputy Governor Danforth, the man who oversees all the Salem witch trials.
Hinds slowly mines the fanaticism that's underneath his characters placid surface in a slow-burn performance that is perfectly judged. When Danforth reveals he would rather hang ten thousand people than flout one line of the law, most of what we need to know about his pitiless nature is starkly revealed.
The cast is uniformly excellent and they trust Miller's text, which stands among the most important works of theater of the 20th century, to speak for itself. But director Ivo van Hove can't resist some theatrical tinkering of his own.
He has a girl fly into the air inexplicably. He has writing appear by magic on a school blackboard, and he even has a wolf like dog take to the stage, all in service to an eerie atmosphere.
But Miller and his central characters know that Abigails charges are all fraud, and they are somewhat undermined somewhat by van Hove's dramatic images. If they know -- and we know -- that none of this is real, why is a girl flying, why are strange words appearing on blackboards, and how and when exactly have Abigail and her bewitched friends worked out complex choreography moves that are timed in perfect unison?
It's a dangerous gambit for a play that reminds us that what looks good is not necessarily a corollary for what is good. Thankfully, though, there are few of these overly directorial moments in the production, and instead van Hove trusts his actors to carry the magnificent text.
As Elizabeth, John Proctor's tragic wife, Okonedo is superb as a wronged woman who grapples with her own anger as she is asked to forgive her errant spouse. Whishaw's heartbreak at having disappointed her is equally moving, and all the while Miller shows us what happens to good people when fraud and political calculation overrule good sense.
Ronan has proved she has the skill to command a Broadway house on her first theatrical outing. That's a remarkable debut for the two time Oscar nominated actress, who can put the anxiety of wondering how she'd fare in live performance behind her now. The Crucible is a triumph.
The Crucible is now playing at the Walter Kerr, 219 West 48th Street, New York. For tickets call 877-250-2929.
A major gathering of OKeeffes from all over the globe is in the works.
The massive get-together will be held in the Barony of Duhallow, Co. Cork, Ireland on September 9th-11th, 2016.
We are calling on O Keeffes and their descendants from all over the world to come to Dromtarriffe, Kanturk, Co Cork, Ireland to visit their ancestral home, said event organizers.
Duhallow has been the principal home of the O Keeffes. Many O Keeffes immigrated from Duhallow and made their mark all around the world. As the the O' Keeffe travelled throughout the world the spelling of the O' Keeffe name has been adapted, for example, O' Keefe, O Cuiv, O Caoimh, and Keefe.
Come and celebrate our roots with us. Meet long lost family and friends.
During a welcome reception on Friday, Clan Chieftan Dan Joe OKeeffe will officially open the weekend, which will include a program of events.
Guided bus tours to local historical sites of interest to the OKeeffe Clan are planned for Saturday, as well as a clan banquet dinner in The Wallis Arms Hotel later that evening. Following the buffet dinner, there will be music, song, dance, and story telling.
There will also be a history exhibition in Dromtariffe Community Hall, with a genealogist in attendance to assist visitors with an interest in researching their Irish ancestors.
Sunday will include Mass, lunch, a history lecture and a group visit and commemoration at Dromagh Castle.
More information on the gathering can be found at http://okeeffeclans.com/ and on the Facebook page O Keeffe Clan Rally 2016.
Microsoft made a mistake at its recent developers conference when it didn't use the opportunity to push customers to buy new hardware, an analyst said today.
"On behalf of the Windows 10 team, we're happy to welcome all of these customers to Windows 10, whether they have a new PC, a five-year-old PC, or a Mac [emphasis added]," said Terry Myerson, the executive who leads the company's devices and operating systems group, after touting a new number of active Windows 10 users.
Carolina Milanesi, principal analyst at Creative Strategies, picked up on Myerson's "five-year-old PC," and didn't like what she heard.
"While Microsoft stated it is fine with some of those users having five-year-old PCs, a clear response to Phil Schiller's recent comment on the topic during Apple's last launch event, we strongly believe Microsoft should actually be concerned about the issue," Milanesi wrote in an analysis published on Creative Strategies' website.
Milanesi referred to Schiller -- Apple's head of marketing -- because during the unveiling of the 9.7-in. iPad Pro two weeks ago he trumpeted the device as "the ultimate PC replacement."
"There are over 600 million PCs in use today that are over five years old. This is really sad. These people could really benefit from an iPad Pro," Schiller said, taking one of Apple's trademark shots at the competition.
Microsoft, not surprisingly, saw things differently, as Myerson welcomed older systems to Windows 10. But he also heralded the new. "Our hardware partners ... have launched more than 500 new devices designed for Windows 10," Myerson said.
Milanesi thought talk of "old" illustrated Microsoft's fixation on getting current users to upgrade to Windows 10 and signaled that the company is not focused enough on convincing customers that they should purchase a new PC.
Her premise is simple: Those with newer machinesaere more likely to actually use the PC, and thus the OS, than people who had let their system age without replacement. In other words, by fixating on upgrades rather than new machine purchases, Microsoft has acknowledged that it's attracting a less-valuable audience.
According to Creative Strategies' research, consumers with a PC less than a year old were much more likely to use it for tasks like social networking -- Facebook, Pinterest and the like -- playing video games, and running productivity software, than were people who had hung onto the same system for five or six years.
That makes sense: Those with older PCs haven't upgraded because they've transferred many tasks, and the time they spend on devices overall, to smartphones, tablets or a mix of the two. Likewise, new owners bought because they wanted to use their PCs for more chores.
But since Windows 10 is essentially PC-only -- Milanesi said Windows tablet sales were flat, and the state of Windows on phones was dismal -- if users aren't engaged with a personal computer, they're not engaged with Windows 10.
And Microsoft should be paying more attention to that engagement.
"While [customers] might upgrade to Windows 10 -- the upgrade is free, after all, if they have kept their software up to date -- they might not be curious enough to experiment and discover," Milanesi said. "This is especially true when it comes to Universal Windows apps. In return, this will create less stickiness to the OS and lower even more the need to upgrade to new form factors like 2-in-1s."
Microsoft is counting on Windows 10 usage to bolster its bottom line through app purchases, ad sales on Bing and service revenue. But sans engagement, that goal may be unattainable.
"The mix still skews heavily to software upgrades. If [Microsoft] had good numbers for new machines they would have certainly mentioned those," Milanesi said in an email reply to questions today. "My point is that looking at how many software downloads there are does not paint the full picture. Microsoft cannot risk to be blinded by software upgrades. If people do not have new machines in their hands, Windows 10 will not make a huge difference long term when it comes to consumers loving Windows, not just using it."
About a quarter of the PC users surveyed by Creative Strategies used a system five or six years old. Of those respondents, 61% said that they had no plans to upgrade their machine in the next 12 months, reinforcing the engagement decline.
But even those with newer PCs lose interest in over time. "There is an increase in managing files and content, but a decrease in social [networking] and editing photos," said Milanesi of consumers with PCs aged two to four years. "You see users doing more at the start but then keeping [to the more] traditional PC tasks [on] the PC, diverting the rest mostly to the phone. This makes engagement even more important for Windows 10."
Microsoft has talked about Windows 10 engagement and cited some statistics on the subject, but not with enough consistency for outsiders to analyze and interpret. At Build, for example, Myerson claimed, "Customers are more engaged than ever before," and touted the statistic of 75 billion total hours of activity logged by Windows 10 users since launch.
While Microsoft has called out hours of activity previously -- in early January it said the OS had logged 11 billion hours during December -- as part of an effort to cast Windows 10 as a service, it had not issued a total number before. That makes it impossible to get a sense of whether usage has been increasing, decreasing or flat when compared with the number of devices.
Clearly, the pool of the most engaged users -- those who recently purchased a PC -- has shrunk. Research firm IDC recently forecast that the industry will ship 261 million personal computers in 2016, representing a 100 million device decline from "Peak PC" in 2011, with annual shipments through the rest of the decade of about 250 million units annually.
But it's unclear what Microsoft could do to boost sales of new PCs, which, especially on the consumer side, have plummeted over the last several years. The Redmond, Wash. firm has already beaten the drum about technologies coming to Windows 10, including pen support in the mid-summer anniversary upgrade, that require new hardware.
Milanesi's suggestion?
"Microsoft needs to find a way to make these users reconnect with their PC so they [realize] the limitations their old hardware has on their desire to take full advantage of what Windows 10 has to offer," she said.
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.
Is it time to think about which college to go to? Surely, educational ranking and course availability is required as well as the affordability of the program. However, some consider campus safety to be a major choice.
Millions of American students are now thinking about which college or university to go to. They are weighing their options about where to spend the next four years of their lives, according to Time.
One such source of information, called the Princeton Review, helps students assess which college or university is best fit for them, based on the data collected for the past thirty years. However, campus safety is not included in their data bank.
Is this school safe? How safe? How likely is it that any given student-myself, my child-will experience sexual assault? What is the count of students being attacked or assaulted?
Colleges often do not answer these questions sufficiently. News reports have made it clear that children are being exposed to violence and can turn on their own peers. If these parents' children are going to a different state, they want to be assured that they are well taken cared of.
Sexual assault remains both underreported and epidemic in the United States' college campus. The AAUW reports that 1 in 5 women, and 1 in 16 men, are being sexually assaulted on college campus. These survivors of such assault go to court and hold the college itself responsible for the safety of the students.
Families and students are trying to make informed choices. Which is why schools are being asked to update their system to include such information. Questions like "What is the institution's record on and approach to crime and sexual assault? What is the administration doing to keep the campus safe?" should be answered.
Institutions, from ranking entities to colleges themselves, need to take positive action for us to see culture change and actual impact on the conduct of colleges and the safety of students. Time ends with a critical note - that students and their parents have a right to know.
Having a co worker out to get you for any reason is stressful and can be hazardous to your career and even your mental health. Recognize the signs that Monster gives in this article.
As general advice goes, make sure you document anything you need you will need later (emails, for example) that prove that a colleague or God forbid a superior is out for your blood.
Also learn to recognize when they are going too far and who you can talk to for help if necessary.
Drama at the office is more common than you might think, and usually stems from dissatisfaction of a stressed workforce. Or, of course, it could just mean there's someone toxic on staff.
Know the signs of this alarming event in case this happens to you.
1. Someone has been tampering with your computer
If you get a message that warns you against entering the wrong password too many times and it wasn't you, someone may be trying to access private files. Change your password frequently and try not to mis-enter so that wrong entries are caught with ease.
If you find someone has been trying to open or modify or delete something of yours, they may be looking for something to use against you. Be careful.
2. Someone at work makes it a point to highlighting your errors
Is someone trying to insult and humiliate you every chance they get? Is a co-worker highlighting the smallest of your mistakes and trying to blow them up to everyone? This is a big red flag, especially when the mistakes do not have big consequences - and also when they are being broadcast to the superiors.
3. Are people telling you a colleague is talking behind your back?
Maybe he/she is trying to get people against you and on they are probably trying to undermine you and ruin your credibility to leas to your ultimate ruin.
Also watch out for colleagues downplaying your success.
Allergan PLC finalized a multi-million licensing deal with Heptares Therapeutics of U.K. after its $150 billion merger plans with Pfizer was scuttled by the new inversion laws of the United States.
The new deal involves the development of drugs for Alzheimer's and other neurological conditions. This move shows the determination of the U.K.-based company to move on and stay as a stand-alone drug firm.
The contract with Heptares requires Allergan to pay up front $125 million to the Japanese-owned company, and another $665 million in milestone payments if they successfully complete clinical trials of the drugs they manufacture.
Heptares Therapeutics is wholly owned by Sosei Group Corp., the parent company based in Japan.
Another $2.5 billion in milestone payments apart from royalties will be due, depending on the potential success of the drugs. Allergan also committed to invest $50 million for a joint research and development program to promote a number of drugs to mid-stage human trials.
Brent Saunders, Allergan CEO, stated that his company is capable of delivering "sustainable growth" on its own. He added that it has strong brands and a drug pipeline with much potential. The company is also expecting to close the sale of the Actavis generics business to Teva Pharmaceutical Industries for $40.5 billion in June.
Teva Pharmaceuticals has offices in North Wales, and employs over 2,000 workers in the Philadelphia region.
Allergan's initiatives will allay the fears of investors that the sudden collapse of its merger with Pfizer will disrupt its conduct of business at Dublin, Ireland.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the United States Treasury Department rallied against criticisms pointed against its new tax inversion rules.
It stated that these new regulations are shutting down loopholes or unfair provisions that enable large corporations transfer their tax affairs to countries with lesser levies by combining with smaller companies.
Sources:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/allergan-completes-licensing-deal-after-pfizer-bid-collapses-1460031574
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20160407_New_federal_rules_squash_Pfizer_deal__other_area_firms_unaffected.html
BOONE The top academic officer at Appalachian State University says the school's chancellor wants to meet with students protesting a new state law limiting anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Provost Darrell Kruger says Chancellor Sheri Everts aims to meet with campus protesters Monday, after she recovers from surgery. Protest spokeswoman Rachel Clay said about 50 students were occupying the ground-floor lobby of the school's administration building Saturday, two days after dozens of students began their sit-in.
Clay says students will keep occupying the building until Everts denounces the new law.
College campuses across the state have seen protests against the law, which blocks some anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people. The law also requires transgender people to use only public bathrooms matching their biological sex.
Rachel Olson holds a photograph of infant daughter Finley, who authorities say was killed by a caregiver in January. To honor her daughter and to try and do something positive to help others, Rachel continues to pump her breast milk and donates it to a milk bank. Credit: Gary Porter for the Journal Sentinel
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On Jan. 13, around 5 p.m., Finley Rae Olson arrived at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin with a fractured skull.
She was 6 months old. Twenty-eight inches tall. Seventeen pounds. Blood pooled in her brain.
Finley had blue eyes. Like those of her mother, Rachel. Like those of her father, Will. Like those of her 3-year-old brother, Ryder. Rachel says people used to stop her all the time to comment on Finley's eyes. On her eyes, and also on her smile.
"Happy baby," they said.
At the hospital, Finley was placed on a bed that, to Rachel, seemed much too big for a baby, for anyone's baby. How could this be? Finley's body was a little clearing in a forest of tubes and wires and machines. Rachel wondered: How could this be?
And then, two days later, the tubes and wires were removed, the machines were taken from the room, and Rachel and Will spent a few quiet hours with their daughter as she died. Her heart was beating, Rachel says. Then it stopped.
Rachel and Will drove their empty car home.
"It was hard to drive away from the hospital," she says. "To leave her on that bed. I thought about the hospital staff moving her to some room. And then to the morgue.
"I had no idea what we would do when we got home. How do we go home and do normal things? We don't know how to do this."
A 30-year-old woman from Cudahy Carrie A. Heller is charged with killing Finley.
Heller had been Finley's caregiver for all of 11 days. According to court records, she's given police several different stories of what happened. She said she was changing Finley's diaper and the baby appeared to have had a seizure. Then she said she shook the baby a little. Then she said the baby fell off a couch. Then she said she dropped Finley. Then she said she accidentally hit Finley in the head with a highchair tray.
Heller has pleaded not guilty to first-degree reckless homicide charges. Rachel and Will attend all the hearings.
There was one on Thursday. Rachel watched Heller come into the courtroom, dressed in blue garb, handcuffed between two deputies, eyes to the floor.
Rachel says their eyes never meet.
She tries to imagine why this woman would do such a thing. Why?
"Why Finley," Rachel says. "Why any baby?"
There is no "why," she's decided.
Nothing explains it.
When Rachel and Will got home from the hospital that day, she pumped her breast milk. Actually, she doesn't think of it as her breast milk. It's Finley's milk, she says.
She couldn't bring herself to throw it away. She poured it into packets for storing breast milk each packet holds 5 ounces and put them in a freezer.
She already had a two-week supply. And so she began to add to it. Packet by packet.
Pumping breast milk is not exactly a treat. Even less so when the milk only accumulates. No baby to watch grow. Only a growing supply of frozen packets.
Then she heard about Mothers' Milk Bank of the Western Great Lakes, which provides pasteurized human milk to hospitals for premature and critically ill babies and provides support to mothers who are able to donate their milk because their babies have died.
The milk is an elixir, says Cindy Ruz and nurse and lactation specialist at the Women's Pavilion at the Aurora West Allis Medical Center, where Finley was born.
And there is never enough.
Rachel went through the milk bank's extensive screening process and continued to save her milk, one 5-ounce packet at a time.
On Thursday, after Heller's hearing, Rachel loaded her packets of milk into a blue cooler and met Ruz at the hospital.
The hospital is a depot for the milk bank. Ruz took possession of 83 packets.
"Such a wonderful gift," Ruz said. "Such a loving act."
As she drove to the hospital, Rachel says, she didn't really think of Heller. Finley would have turned 9 months old that day. Instead, she thought about that.
"I know she would have been crawling," Rachel says. "I imagined her crawling, with Ryder leading the way, laughing."
Rachel dropped off the milk, then drove home.
She thought of the milk as a gift, one that came from Finley. It honored her daughter. It honored them both.
Some teacher education programs in Wisconsin have 20% to 40% fewer students than they had a half dozen years ago. Credit: Michael Sears
The invocation at a dinner Thursday night at Alverno College was given by a student, Edna Gonzalez, who said she hopes to teach algebra or geometry in an inner-city school.
"We'll hire you," called out a school administrator in the audience.
That got a laugh. But the underlying point was not funny. There's a big need for teachers in certain subjects. Math is one of them.
Overall, I don't think there are two words I can say in conversation with school leaders that get a bigger reaction currently than these: teacher pipeline.
In other words, where are schools going to get the teachers they will need in coming years? Enrollment is down in university and college teacher education programs across Wisconsin and across the United States. Some programs in Wisconsin have 20% to 40% fewer students than they had a half-dozen years ago.
Reid Riggle, a professor at St. Norbert College in DePere and president of the Wisconsin Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, told me there has been some rebound recently, but shortages in specific subjects (science, math, special education and working with English language learners) persist. It's also easier to recruit teachers to work in suburbs than in urban centers or thinly populated areas such as northern Wisconsin, he said.
According to the most recent figures available, there were 8,867 people enrolled in teacher preparation programs in Wisconsin in the 2013-'14 school year. In itself, that would be enough to fill all the expected teacher openings in coming years.
But things aren't so simple. As Riggle said, the interests students have don't fully match what's needed out there.
There is also the delicate but important matter of who is going into teaching. In many cases, the upcoming teachers are hardworking, capable, talented and idealistic. And in some cases, they aren't so strong in at least a couple of those areas.
And then there is the matter of how to do better in preparing people to become teachers.
All of this brings us to Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor at Stanford University who has a list of titles and involvements that amount to saying she is one of the foremost figures in teacher education in the country. At the Alverno dinner, she received the college's Sister Joel Read Outstanding Educator Award for her overall impact and accomplishments. (I need to disclose that I was on the committee that selected her for the award and I moderated a conversation with her at the dinner.)
In an interview, Darling-Hammond said teacher shortages are cyclical, often with links to economic downturns. But there's more going on than just the ups and downs of interest in teaching jobs, she said.
Issues to deal with
The nation needs to deal with fundamental issues involving teacher preparation and ways to lead them to be more successful on the job. She listed some of them:
Teachers are paid less than other college graduates and less than teachers in other countries. Overall, teachers are paid 60% of what other college graduates make. Money isn't everything, but if we want top teachers, we need to make the job an attractive choice, including financially.
Working conditions are difficult. She emphasized that American teachers as a whole spend much more time in front of students and are given much less time for planning, collaborating with other teachers and developing their abilities than teachers in nations that have generally better records on international tests than the U.S. has.
"We've had teacher bashing," she said, and that doesn't help. You know the litany of snarky remarks about teachers. (She didn't focus on Wisconsin specifically, where the battles over pay, benefits and union rights in 2011 left teacher morale damaged.)
"We don't have a strategic perspective" nationwide on how to improve teaching. Darling-Hammond said, "The federal government has been missing in action in a very troubling way in recent years" in funding programs to encourage people to go into teaching, especially in high needs fields and locations. Many of the things that have been advocated, such as merit pay and using test scores to evaluate the quality of teachers, just don't work, she said.
The general needs of children, especially in impoverished communities. "Our children are the least well-cared for in the industrialized world," she said. "The teacher pipeline issue is a symptom of a much larger set of problems that this country has allowed to take hold for children, families and urban communities."
What about teacher preparation programs? Darling-Hammond is a forceful advocate of traditional teacher training programs when they're done well and when they include a lot of student-teaching or similar work in which someone learns to teach under the wing of a skilled, experienced teacher.
In a 2006 book, "Powerful Teacher Education: Lessons from Exemplary Programs," Darling-Hammond focused on seven higher education programs around the country that were, in her assessment, doing things right. One of them was Alverno, which has a distinctive "abilities-based" program.
She wrote in the book that she was convinced "that a large part of the answer to poor schooling in this country is to understand what strong preparation for teachers looks like and can do, and to undertake policy changes needed to ensure that all teachers can have access to such preparation."
She told me that maybe a quarter of education schools in the U.S. had programs of that quality. Many are OK, but not at that level. And some should not be in the business. She said there should be minimum requirements for the quality of teacher education programs.
But, she added, "If there's been a lot of teacher bashing, there's been even more teacher education bashing." Don't count her in on that. Do count her in on standing up for teachers, for good teacher training and for supporting teachers so they have the most positive impact.
Alan J. Borsuk is senior fellow in law and public policy at Marquette University Law School. Reach him at alan.borsuk@marquette.edu.
Ryan Freund, his wife Melissa, and their 18-month-old daughter Adair enjoy family time at home in New Berlin. Credit: Michael Sears
SHARE For Teddy Blondheim, an Oshkosh boy who turns 3 in July, DNA sequencing revealed a rare genetic disorder that makes it unlikely he will reach adulthood. Family photo Nic Volkers case marked a turning point in medicine. Journal Sentinel files One in a Billion A boy's life, a medical mystery: A three-part series about a little boy with a rare, devastating disease. In a desperate bid to save his life, Wisconsin doctors must decide: Is it time to push medicines frontier? Read the series
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Late last year, DNA sequencing revealed that Teddy Blondheim, who turns 3 in July, has a rare genetic disorder. Teddy's parents also learned there is no treatment, and that most affected children have an average life span of three years.
But the Oshkosh parents say they're grateful for the clarity, and for finding a small online community with members from Australia, Poland and other parts of the United States who have children with the same disorder.
DNA sequencing produced no diagnosis for 18-month-old Adair Freund, forcing the New Berlin girl's parents to confront the fact that, for now, her heart problems, hand deformities and hip dysplasia will remain a mystery.
"We were able to rule out a ton of stuff," said Ryan Freund, Adair's father. "We're pretty fortunate some of these things got ruled out."
With millions of Americans now discovering the ways in which genomic medicine may change their lives, Adair's family has learned that her inconclusive result does not close a door; there is still a chance to probe even more deeply their child's genetic script. Scientists had sequenced Adair's exome, the protein-coding portion of her genes, which constitutes less than 2% of her genome.
The two children, both sequenced at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, are among hundreds of thousands of patients around the world whose lives have been touched by a new kind of medicine, ushered into practice more than six years ago when doctors in Wisconsin successfully diagnosed a young Madison-area boy's mysterious disease and used the knowledge to treat him.
Nic Volker's case marked a turning point in medicine. The long string of chemical bases that spells out our traits from hair and eye color to the odds of acquiring many diseases had been used to improve human health.
Not surprisingly, in the years since Nic's sequencing, efforts to drill into the genetic code for answers to complex human conditions have produced results across the spectrum, from lifesaving triumphs to frustrating failures.
"If you start with Nic Volker, I would emphasize that what was at the time a novelty is now relatively routine," said Eric Green, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. "There are hundreds and hundreds of cases in which patients are getting exome sequencing relatively early in the diagnostic process."
Sequencing has begun to affect the lives of a new generation at birth and even before birth.
Researchers in Kansas City and San Diego said in September that they had cut to 26 hours the amount of time needed to diagnose critically ill newborns using a new technology to analyze genomic data.
"Diagnosing acutely ill babies is a race against the clock, as even one day of waiting can be a matter of life or death," Stephen Kingsmore, the study's senior author and president and chief executive officer of the Pediatric Genomics and Systems Medicine Institute at Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego, said at the time.
Interesting ethical issues
Tests of placental DNA circulating in the blood of pregnant women are now helping thousands of mothers avoid the need for amniocentesis to determine whether their child has a chromosomal abnormality such as Down syndrome, according to prenatal geneticist Diana W. Bianchi at Tufts Medical Center.
The blood DNA test was first offered clinically in China early in 2011 and in the U.S. in October of the same year, Bianchi said. One such test, developed by Medical College of Wisconsin faculty members Aoy Tomita-Mitchell and her husband, Michael Mitchell, came on the market in 2012.
"It's been amazing in just over four years how much this has penetrated into clinical care," Bianchi said. "At least 2 million women worldwide have received the test."
As with many applications of sequencing, the placental blood test has raised interesting and potentially tricky ethical issues. Unlike other genomic sequencing tests, this one contains the DNA of two people, both mother and child. So a mother trying to determine whether her baby has an abnormality may inadvertently discover that she has cancer or some other illness, a point made by Bianchi and colleagues last summer in the Journal of The American Medical Association.
DNA sequencing has also spread into other key areas of medicine, helping health investigators track outbreaksof Ebola, Zika and other viruses, and providing hospitals with a way of more precisely monitoring antibiotic-resistant infections, Green said.
In April 2015, researchers from the United Kingdom and Canada carried a new type of compact DNA sequencing system in standard airline luggage to Guinea and used it to monitor the spread of the Ebola epidemic in real time. The sequencing took as little as 15 minutes, and the researchers were able to generate results less than 24 hours after receiving a sample.
However, experts stress that genomic medicine is still in its early days. As Nic Volker's doctors had foreseen in 2009 when they first discussed sequencing the child in an attempt to determine the cause of his intestinal disease, the problem remains analyzing the enormous amount of data in the human genetic script.
"We've gotten a lot better at interpreting, but it's still early days and that's still the bottleneck," Green explained.
Part of the problem remains a basic science question: What does the vast majority of the genome actually do?
"We've gotten reasonably proficient at understanding the protein-coding regions, the exome," Green said. "We're still fairly amateurish at dealing with the other 98% of the genome."
Evolving quickly
Howard Jacob, who made the decision to sequence Nic Volker while heading the genomics center at Medical College of Wisconsin, said that back in 2009, sequencing was a research tool. Now it's a clinical tool.
"When we sequenced Nic, we had trouble getting published because everyone thought we were irresponsible," said Jacob, now chief medical genomics officer at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Ala. "Now, I'm not going to say it's standard of care, but it's becoming much more common."
About 200,000 human genomes have been sequenced for clinical purposes, according to estimates by Illumina Inc., a California company that dominates the DNA sequencing technology market, Jacob said.
As many as 400,000 human genomes have been sequenced when you add in those done for research purposes, said Jonathan Groberg, an analyst at UBS, in a recent report titled "The World is Changing, Are You Ready?"
However, the number of genomes sequenced to date is meager, in the early stages of what Groberg calls a "genomics big bang."
"The whole era of personalized medicine is only just beginning to become a possibility because of this technology," said Donald Basel, interim chief of the genetics division at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, which runs a genomic medicine clinic that sees four to six patients a week.
The HiSeq X Ten system, introduced by Illumina in 2014, can sequence more than 18,000 human genomes a year.
"The bottom line is that the raw cost of sequencing (without analysis) has plummeted to the point where a patient can be fully sequenced for about $1,000," said Kevin Davies, author of "The $1,000 Genome" and founder of the journal Nature Genetics. "But it's the interpretation and analysis where more work needs to be done," he said.
When Jacob and his team sequenced Nic, it cost more than $75,000 to examine just his exome. Six years later, Jacob's recently opened Smith Family Clinic for Genomic Medicine in Huntsville is now using the Illumina HiSeq X Ten system to sequence patients' entire genomes.
Total cost to patients for sequencing, analysis and interpretation: $6,500.
Sequencing results in an immediate diagnosis about 25% of the time, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. At the Medical College of Wisconsin, sequencing provides an immediate diagnosis 32.5% of the time, Basel said.
Checking the boxes
The Freunds and Blondheims both said that even though they weren't familiar with DNA sequencing, they had no hesitation about having the Medical College's Human and Molecular Genetics Center perform the test.
"We had the appointment on Friday, mailed the forms back on Monday and checked all the boxes," said Kerry Blondheim, Teddy's mom.
By checking all the boxes on the Children's Hospital form, something the Freunds also did, they chose to know about all treatable and untreatable childhood and adult conditions revealed through sequencing.
The Freunds reasoned that the information whatever it was would allow them to plan, said Ryan Freund, Adair's dad. Even if they were facing their daughter's death, they decided they wanted to know.
"Then in the short-term we wouldn't be chucking money into a 401(k)," Freund said. "We'd be chucking it into making memories with our little girl."
Freund said he and his wife, Melissa, relied on their faith as they worked through how they would respond to different results. They had discussions with members of their extended families, asking if they wanted to be told about any results they could act on. Half wanted to know; half didn't.
"It's hard for people to understand the conversations we're having at home," Freund said.
Insurance covered Adair's sequencing, but it is unclear whether it would cover whole genome sequencing. So the Freunds are now weighing whether to spend the money to get the more comprehensive test.
"Is knowing worth the monetary implications, or do we watch how she develops?" Freund said. "She's the happiest girl in the world. The only thing I care about is if there are ways to figure out what's good for her."
Families eligible for sequencing often struggle to get insurers to pay for the test, which the companies view as expensive for the incremental gain in results.
"Insurance is still a nightmare," Jacob said. "It's hand-to-hand combat with the insurance companies."
Insurance also covered Teddy Blondheim's sequencing. In his case, the first clue there was something wrong was when he started having seizures shortly after he turned 5 months old. Other issues surfaced, developmental delays, poor muscle tone and the inability to walk independently.
As the mystery of Teddy's condition deepened, he was referred to Children's Hospital's genomic medicine clinic. Teddy's sequencing results, received in late 2015 when he was 21/2 years old, revealed a diagnosis of multiple congenital anomalies-hypotonia-seizures syndrome-1, a syndrome that can be found only through sequencing.
Teddy was only the 15th patient in the world to receive this diagnosis, which was discovered in 2011, his parents said. They've found more affected individuals since then through the small community on Facebook.
"To be able to connect with that Facebook group has been the best thing that came out of sequencing," said Kerry Blondheim, Teddy's mom.
For now, Teddy is relatively healthy and has made tremendous progress, Blondheim said. Many of the children in the Facebook group aren't doing as well. During a recent family trip to California, his parents wrote on their Teddy's Triumph and Trials blog that he babbled something none of the others have done.
As for Nic Volker, whose 2009 sequencing provided a diagnosis that led to a treatment, his mysterious disease has not reappeared. However Nic, now 11, has experienced setbacks, including being diagnosed with epilepsy and post-traumatic stress disorder, both side effects from treatments and years in the hospital.
Amylynne Santiago Volker, Nic's mom, often wonders how the course of his life might have been affected if he had been born later and had the benefit of DNA sequencing as a newborn.
She has formed a nonprofit The Nicholas Volker One in a Billion Foundation to raise awareness, help families grapple with undiagnosed, rare and threatening medical conditions, and advance the practice of genomic medicine.
"The message really is 'let's do this,'" Santiago Volker said.
PODCAST:
Behind the Headlines
To hear reporters Kathleen Gallagher and Mark Johnson talk about this story, listen to this week's Behind the Headlines podcast, available Sunday at jsonline.com/behindtheheadlines, or subscribe in the iTunes store or through Stitcher Radio.
Book explores the beginning
"One in a Billion: The Story of Nic Volker and the Dawn of the Genomic Age" debuts on Tuesday. An expansion of the Pulitzer Prize-winning series by Mark Johnson and Kathleen Gallagher, the book tells the remarkable story of Nic Volker, the young boy with a never-before-seen disease, and the Wisconsin doctors who took a bold step into the future of medicine to save him.
Johnson, Gallagher and Amylynne Santiago Volker, Nic's mom, will be at a book launch event at Discovery World on April 16. The book event is in conjunction with Discovery World's Unlocking Life's Code exhibit. For more information and to RSVP for the book launch, go to eventbrite.com and search for "One in a Billion book launch."
Johnson, Gallagher and Alan Mayer, the doctor who pushed scientists to sequence Nic's genes, will be at Boswell Books for a signing on May 26.
GROWTH OF SEQUENCING
The Medical College of Wisconsin's Human and Molecular Genetics Center sequences DNA for patients at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, Froedtert Hospital and other health care institutions. Since Nic Volker, it has sequenced the DNA of 1,695 patients.
2011: 13
2012: 7
2013: 166
2014: 777
2015: 732
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A study of bus rapid transit service between downtown Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center in Wauwatosa is considering possible routes that combine a stretch of W. Wisconsin Ave. with either W. State St. or W. Blue Mound Road, Milwaukee County transportation officials said.
Wisconsin Ave. between N. Hawley Road and N. 89th St. has been removed from proposed routes because the street narrows through a primarily residential neighborhood and there would not be enough space for separate, exclusive bus lanes required for the service.
Transit planners prefer to keep bus rapid transit, or BRT, on routes with a mix of businesses and residences, Milwaukee County Transit System spokesman Brendan Conway said.
A seven-mile east-west corridor was selected for the proposed BRT due to the concentration of employers along the alignment and at both ends, county transportation officials say in a study update. The report is available on a special project website, www.EastWestBRT.com.
The new transit service is needed to reduce congestion of motor vehicles on roadways in the corridor, and improve access to jobs and health care, officials said. Those goals will become even more critical during planned reconstruction of I-94 between 16th and 70th St. The freeway work could begin in 2019.
A revised map of remaining routes under study and descriptions of bus rapid transit service will be displayed this week at three public meetings.
The largest employment centers in southeast Wisconsin would anchor both ends of the BRT route, according to the study update.
Downtown Milwaukee encompasses 81,000 jobs and 25,000 residents, with more housing planned.
The Milwaukee Regional Medical Center has more than 16,000 employees and 30,000 daily visitors.
Milwaukee County Research Park and the nearby University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee add another 4,600 employees to the mix.
Among major employers along the route are Harley-Davidson and MillerCoors. Other regional destinations include Marquette University and Miller Park.
On Monday, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning is hosting a public forum on the basics of BRT from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at 88Nine Radio Milwaukee, 220 E. Pittsburgh Ave.
Bus rapid transit could be competitive with vehicle drive times on freeways in the same corridor, according to a student-led UW-Milwaukee study.
The students recommended setting aside two center lanes for the buses on a BRT route, rather than curbside lanes. The service could cut transit travel times by 15 minutes or more in that corridor.
The students estimated it would cost $45.9 million to $47.7 million to build a 6.4-mile line in the center median of Wisconsin Ave.
One benefit of the service is the "potential for hundreds of millions of dollars in land redevelopment" along the corridor due to investment near BRT stations, the students said.
Bus rapid transit service created in other communities has spurred new development valued at $100 million to a few billion dollars, according to the county's study update.
MCTS has scheduled two public meetings to share information on the county's feasibility study of bus rapid transit service and explain the preferred routes: 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Miller Room at O'Donnell Park, 910 E. Michigan St.; and 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday in the Zoofari Conference Center, 9715 W. Blue Mound Road, Wauwatosa.
After the three public forums, officials from Milwaukee County, the City of Milwaukee and Wauwatosa expect to meet in June to select a preferred route to be included in a federal transit grant request. The deadline for the grant is September. Those funds would be used to construct the BRT service.
Though it is called rapid transit, the buses will not exceed posted speed limits on the route, according to Conway.
Route times, however, are more rapid and reliable than traditional bus service. That is achieved by running the buses on exclusive, dedicated lanes and equipping the buses with technology to give them green light priority at traffic signals.
There also would be fewer stops along a route, with stations spaced between one-half mile and a mile apart, to help speed up travel times.
The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission recommended BRT service in the east-west corridor as part of a regional transportation system plan published in 2006.
A draft regional land use and transportation plan, known as Vision 2050, recommends up to eight rapid transit lines starting with the east-west corridor.
The county's consultant has not released an estimate of the cost of establishing BRT in the east-west corridor.
A 7-mile BRT service in Cleveland, Ohio, cost nearly $28 million a mile to build. The HealthLine route connects downtown with University Circle, where several regional health care hospitals, clinics and universities are located, according to a March 2015 report by the Public Policy Forum.
BRT service started operating in 2008, and transit ridership in the corridor increased 60% in the first three years, the report said.
Pope Francis arrives for his weekly general audience, in St. Peters Square at the Vatican last Wednesday. Credit: Andrew Medichini
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The 2016 election is transforming the religious landscape of American politics.
It's hard to imagine a Democratic presidential candidate receiving a mid-campaign invitation to speak at the Vatican.
But on Friday, Bernie Sanders put out word that on April 15, he'll attend a gathering of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Both Sanders and Hillary Clinton, his front-running rival, have regularly praised Pope Francis.
And on the day of Sanders' announcement, Francis released "The Joy of Love." The groundbreaking document signaled what can fairly be called a more liberal attitude toward sexuality and the situation of divorced and remarried Catholics.
The pope didn't change church doctrine on gay marriage but was offering another sign that he's pushing the church away from cultural warfare and toward a focus on poverty, economic injustice, immigration and the plight of refugees.
On the Republican side, the conservative evangelical movement is divided over Donald Trump's candidacy. Many of its leaders have denounced him in uncompromising terms they usually reserve for liberal politicians.
One of his toughest critics has been Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. "Can conservatives really believe that, if elected, Trump would care about protecting the family's place in society when his own life is unapologetically what conservatives used to recognize as decadent?" Moore wrote early this year in National Review.
He added: "Trump's willingness to ban Muslims, even temporarily, from entering the country simply because of their religious affiliation would make Jefferson spin in his grave."
Such denunciations are good news for Ted Cruz, who began his campaign at Liberty University, an evangelical intellectual bastion, and had hoped to unify evangelical conservatives.
But in primary after primary, Trump has won a large share of self-described "born again" or evangelical voters, particularly in the South. In the Southern-inflected Super Tuesday contests in March, his showings in Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama were exceptionally strong.
Evangelicals made up 77% of Alabama's Republican primary electorate, and Trump carried them 43% to 22% over Cruz. Among non-evangelicals, Trump beat Cruz 41% to 18%, with roughly a third in this group casting ballots for either Marco Rubio, who has since dropped out, or John Kasich.
Even in defeat in Wisconsin last Tuesday, Trump did about as well among evangelicals (he won 34% of their ballots) as among non-evangelicals (36%).
In one sense, it is not surprising that the politics of white evangelicals are evolving. Their social issue frame and the most important institutions in their movement were created in the late 1970s and 1980s. But this year's developments do suggest, as Elizabeth Bruenig (now of The Washington Post) argued in The New Republic, that "the old-fashioned model of reaching evangelicals no longer appears functional."
Robert Jones, who is CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute (and with whom I have collaborated), sees many evangelicals now as "nostalgia voters." Writing in The Atlantic, he said they are animated less by "a checklist of culture war issues or an appeal to shared religious identity" and more by an anger and anxiety arising from a sense that the dominant culture is moving away from their values.
A backlash around race, which led many white Southern evangelicals toward the Republicans in the 1960s even before the rise of the religious right, also appears to be at work. It is conjoined with opposition to immigration. And evangelicals, like other Republicans, are split by class and their degree of religious engagement.
Were Cruz to secure the Republican nomination, traditional patterns of white evangelical voting might well reassert themselves.
But with Pope Francis lifting up what can be called social justice Christianity, cliches that religion lives largely on the right end of American politics might finally be overturned.
This view was already flawed, given, for example, the long-standing activism of African-American Christians in the politics of economic and racial equity. Clinton especially has been engaged with black churches from the outset of the campaign.
Her own deep commitment to her Methodist faith and its social demands is central to her identity. It could be the key to solving her much-discussed "authenticity" problem, since faith is a powerfully authentic part of who she is.
In the meantime, a Jewish socialist presidential candidate will head off to the Vatican to make a case about climate change and social justice quite congenial to Francis' outlook.
In today's American politics, religion is working in mysterious ways.
E.J. Dionne is a columnist for The Washington Post. Email ejdionne@washpost.com. Twitter: @EJDionne
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Closed lunch periods needed
The recent car accident involving students from Waukesha South High School could have been prevented ("5 high school students hurt in crash with tree in Waukesha," April 7).
Of course, the driver was allegedly speeding and this could have led directly to the accident. However, this accident could have been prevented had the school had a closed lunch period.
Lunch periods at most high schools are very short, lasting from 20 to 30 minutes. Many students with driver's licenses leave the campus to eat at their favorite fast food restaurant. In order to make it back to school in time for their next class, they are forced to drive fast not only to the restaurant but also back to school.
I encourage parents of high school students to be aware of their school's lunch policy. If I had a child in high school, I would advocate for a closed lunch campus policy. I would attend a school board meeting and demand the board change the open lunch policy in favor of a closed one.
As long as high schools maintain their open campus lunch policies, future accidents are certain to occur.
Mark Cherner
Glendale
Just a rubber stamp?
With this past primary election, we've seen how the system works. Starting April 11, you can see how the Wisconsin Conservation Congress process fails.
History and actions speak louder than words, and by that gauge one can see how and when the congress silences dissent. Does anyone really believe that the congress, the Department of Natural Resources, the Natural Resources Boardor the Legislature will take public advice over their own agenda or wants?
At the county meeting, your voice is heard then and there only. After that, your suggestion or resolution must be approved by various congress committees; alas, rejection over opinion or fictional reasons seems a historical reality. So committees, a handful of people, can deny you participating on the spring ballot.
A resolution that survives the Congress and is passed by statewide vote still has more hurdles: the DNR, NRB and/or Legislature. They, too, are under no obligation. Passed resolutions can just be ignored.
Instead of wasting time and money, I say bypass the Congress, write the NRB, DNR or your legislator directly. The spring statewide ballot consists of only those resolutions the congress wants and allows. That's not democracy, that's a rubber stamp.
Steven Alt
Glendale
Suppressing the vote
So U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman has a warm and fuzzy feeling about possibly suppressing the vote (I mean preventing fraud, I always get their intentions wrong) ("Jury still out on voter ID," April 6).
If he still believes the voter ID law is not doing enough, how about a DNA sample, blood tests or finger printing?
Or just pass a law to throw out all opposition votes.
Denis Reoh
Green Bay
Mississippi denying service
This letter is one response to the recent Mississippi law allowing churches, religious groups and privately held businesses to refuse services to others based on their lifestyles ("Law allows denial of service to gays," April 6).
The fundamental questions here is how does someone else's lifestyle affect, even influence, another's religious beliefs? How does serving someone in a restaurant or baking them a cake impinge upon the server's or baker's belief system? How does the topic even arise? Here's your coffee and are you gay? Is there a question on the menu or bill of sale about religion or lifestyle?
As for public servants, e.g. county clerks, are they not paid by taxpayers? Are not gays, Muslims, Jews, taxpayers? How can they be denied a legal, entitled service?
Furthermore, is there not a problem identifying such "different than me" individuals? Do they look different? Dress different? Well maybe we could have a sign on our business that prevents those wearing a head scarf, or a turban or sidelocks or some other identifying trait in order to somehow protect our religious beliefs. But that won't identify all of those who are different, will it?
Maybe we should do what the Nazis did and have them wear something like the Star of David.
Jeannine Petit
Pewaukee
US Sen. Ron Johnson: The senator should favor hearings for President Barack Obamas Supreme Court nominee. Credit: Todd Ponath
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Wisconsinites across the state wake up every morning to go to work and do their job. Why then, isn't U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson doing his job in Washington, D. C.?
Unfortunately for Wisconsin citizens, Johnson is blindly adhering to the partisan obstructionist tactics of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. They've joined in opposing a fair public hearing and vote on President Barack Obama's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Merrick Garland.
While Johnson has said he will meet with Garland, opposing any hearing or further consideration is a breach of his constitutional duties and an affront to the voters of Wisconsin. Johnson swore an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States," but now it seems that his constitutional duties only apply when it's politically convenient. Wisconsinites expect more than partisan obstructionism from their U.S. senators. We expect them to display good judgment and independence when the occasion calls for it. Now is such a time.
Blocking a hearing and dragging out the nomination process for over a year is unprecedented when it comes to U.S. Supreme Court appointments. Every member of the current Supreme Court was confirmed within fewer than 100 days of his or her nomination. For each and every nominee since 1975, the Senate has taken an average of 67 days to "advise and consent." If Johnson has his way, the current vacancy likely would go unfilled for at least 14 months.
Johnson's concerns with allowing a hearing for Garland appear to be entirely political as he faces a tough re-election battle this year. But he would be wise to emulate his Republican colleague, Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, another first-term GOP senator who is facing a tough re-election battle this year. Kirk has bucked his party and the GOP Senate leadership and has called for a hearing for Garland and a vote on his confirmation before election day.
And if Johnson is concerned with re-election, he ought to realize that Wisconsin voters want him to do his job and fully consider Obama's nominee. A recent Public Policy Polling survey found that 62% of Wisconsin voters, including 67% of independents, said the vacant Supreme Court seat should be filled this year. Another national poll by Monmouth University found that 77% of Americans including 62% of Republicans say Senate Republicans are "playing politics" by not allowing nominee Garland to get a hearing.
It is clear voters are rejecting Johnson's argument that filling the Supreme Court vacancy should wait until the next president is elected. Sixty-five million Americans, including a majority of Wisconsin voters, elected Obama to a full four-year term in 2012.
The time is now for Johnson to reject partisan obstruction of the Senate's constitutional duties and to listen to the majority of voters who want a fair hearing and timely vote. It's time for Johnson to do the job Wisconsinites elected him to do. He should support holding a hearing and a confirmation vote. Johnson can vote against Garland. But he should support having the vote. That's the Wisconsin way.
Jay Heck is the executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin.
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There is so much potential in our youth potential that can be unlocked by the power of generosity and education. Today, at 91, I look back and recognize that I am a man blessed beyond measure and I owe all of it to the people who went out of their way to provide opportunity where I thought there was none and who opened doors through the power of education. It is my responsibility our responsibility as a community to do the same for others.
My life was literally spared through the generosity of those around me. Born in Vienna in 1924, I was able to escape to England in 1938 through the Kindertransport, a program designed to help primarily Jewish children escape Nazi persecution. Although a Jewish refugee, I was eventually grouped with other "enemy aliens" and transported to a Canadian prisoner-of-war camp. Both in England and in Canada, I was blessed to connect with people who strengthened my Jewish faith and modeled the value of Tzedakah "charity" every day. They provided access to education, even in a prisoner-of-war camp, and opened my eyes to opportunity, even in the midst of great challenge.
After being rejected by two universities (one had filled its "Jewish quota;" the other was wary of "enemy aliens") a G-d-sent benefactor went out of his way to connect me with Queen's University, a school willing to give me a chance. I took that chance that simple gift of opportunity to heart, and vowed that I would one day return the favor. My opportunity to practice Tzedakah came sooner than I thought; while I was still a student, my benefactor, who had since become a father figure, left a small inheritance that I gave to Queens for scholarship for students.
I learned a powerful lesson from this experience: "Give when you have nothing, and give when you have a lot." Charity can seem obvious when great wealth is involved, but oftentimes the biggest gestures and most important impacts can come from the smallest amounts.
Through this access to education, I was able to secure a position as a research chemist at Pittsburgh Plate Glass in Milwaukee. I then went on to co-found Aldrich, which became Sigma-Aldrich, the world's largest supplier of research and bio-chemicals. The business was more successful than we could have imagined, employing 9,000 globally.
But it was in co-founding Hillel Academy in 1960, when there were no Jewish schools in Milwaukee, that I found my true passion: promoting education among youths of all ages and backgrounds. Just like Queen's welcomed me, I wanted to welcome others.
My sons and, later, one of my grandsons, attended Hillel Academy; it remains open and welcoming to all in the Jewish community. Hillel epitomizes all the things that I most value in my life it provides a rigorous modern education and it instills spiritual lessons and Jewish values.
Today, the opportunities that Hillel, and the many other schools like it, can provide to students are astounding and run far ahead of the opportunities I had as a youth. I am amazed to see middle school students developing smartphone apps to help diagnose PTSD, engineering robotics, and pioneering the "next great idea" at an annual "Invention Convention" in partnership with Discovery World.
These are the types of educational opportunities that the youths in our community deserve and need. But it's only possible through the generosity of each and every one of us. We all have something to give whether it's volunteering in a classroom, mentoring a child or providing financial resources to students and schools in need.
When I go to heaven and I'm asked about my life, the accomplishments I will be most proud of will be Hillel Academy, Hillel High School and what I've been able to do to help support education both here and around the world. And I know, at every moment, that it was only possible because someone first opened a door for me. Which doors will you help open?
Alfred Bader is a world-renowned chemist, art collector, philanthropist and teacher. Hillel Academy and Hillel High recently announced they are changing their name to Bader Hillel Academy and Bader Hillel High to honor Bader.
These are the best dishes I've eaten in 2022 in and around Milwaukee
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By Joseph Chamie and Barry Mirkin | (Inter Press Service) |
NEW YORK, Apr 9 2016 (IPS) Regardless of whether they are called fragile, failed, or failing states, scores of countries around the globe are plagued by overwhelming problems with few solutions in sight. Moreover, the instability and dire straits of these countries are spilling across national borders, destabilizing neighboring countries and regions, while posing enormous challenges for international organizations and donors.
While lists of failing states may differ, they include for the most part, the same set of countries. In brief, failing states are unable to provide fundamental societal requirements and basic services to their citizens such as health, education, housing, welfare, employment, security, justice, governance and human rights.
Among the various key factors that can contribute to state failure are poverty, corruption, ineffective governance, crime, violence, forced displacement and sectarian and ethnic conflict. Destabilizing interventions and aggression from abroad are also a part of this toxic mix.
For purposes of this analysis the top 25 states, or the F25 countries, on the 2015 Fragile States Index (FSI) of the Fund for Peace are considered. The index is based on twelve social, economic and political indicators, including demographic pressures, poverty and economic decline, state legitimacy, security, human rights, rule of law, fractionalized elites and external intervention.
Based on their FSI scores, states are grouped into one of twelve categories ranging from Very High Alert to Very Sustainable. Four of the F25 countries South Sudan, Somalia, Central African Republic and Sudan are in the Very High Alert category. Twelve of the F25 are in the subsequent High Alert category, including the war-torn countries of Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, and the remaining nine countries are in the Alert category.
Three-fourths of the F25 countries are in Africa, and all except Libya in sub-Saharan Africa. Of the five Asian countries, four of them, namely, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, are racked by protracted violent armed conflict. The remaining country, Haiti, is the sole failing state in the western hemisphere.
The large majority of the F25 countries 60 percent have remained at the highest levels of the FSI for years. For example, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen have been among the top ten highest countries on the index since its inception in 2005.
Population estimates for the F25 countries show considerable variation (Figure 1). More than half of F25 countries have populations under 20 million and nine have populations between 20 and 99 million. By far, the most populous F25 countries are Nigeria and Pakistan at 182 and 189 million, respectively.
Source: United Nations Population Division and the Fund for Peace.
In the recent past the total population of the F25 countries was considerably smaller than that of developed countries. In 1980, for example, the combined population of the F25 countries was about one-third the size of the population of developed countries (Figure 2). The total population of the F25 is currently about three-quarters the size of developed countries.
Source: United Nations Population Division.
Due to substantially higher demographic growth, by a factor of ten, the combined population of the F25 countries is expected to overtake that of developed countries in little more than a decade. By mid-century, the population of the F25 countries is projected to be 50 percent larger than developed countries, 1.9 and 1.3 billion, respectively.
The stark difference in the pace of demographic change between these two groups of countries is illustrated by comparing the populations of Nigeria and the United States. Currently the U.S. population is nearly twice as large as Nigerias, 322 and 182 million, respectively.
However, as Nigerias current demographic growth is more than triple that of the U.S., Nigeria is projected to overtake the U.S. by mid-century, when Nigeria will have the third largest population in the world, after India and China.
Although the F25 countries have relatively high mortality, with life expectancies at birth below the global average and the majority under 60 years, their rapid population growth is due to high birth rates. Among the F25 countries fertility is usually at least four births per women.
Moreover, some of the worlds highest fertility is observed in F25 countries, such as Niger (7.6 births per woman), Somalia (6.6), Democratic Republic of the Congo (6.2) and Nigeria (5.7).
The populations of the F25 countries are also young. In most instances, half of the population is below the age of 18 years. In some of the countries median ages are even lower, such as Niger (14.8 years), Uganda (15.9) and Somalia (16.5).
The F25 countries are the largest generator of refugees. In mid-2015, the top five sources of refugees under the mandate of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), representing more than 60 percent of the 15 million refugees, were: Syria (4.2 million), Afghanistan (2.6 million), Somalia (1.1 million), South Sudan (0.7 million) and Sudan (0.6 million).
A similar picture emerges with regard to internally displaced persons (IDPs). Of the 34 million IDPs in mid-2015 protected or assisted by UNHCR 70 percent were resident in the F25 countries, with just four of them accounting for nearly half of all IPDs: Syria (7.6 million), Iraq (4.0 million), Sudan (2.3 million) and South Sudan (1.6 million).
In addition to refugees and asylum seekers, high unemployment induces significant movements of unauthorized migrants to wealthier nations. Many youth, especially males, from countries such as Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Haiti, Nigeria and Pakistan are willing to undertake risky and costly trips with smugglers across land and sea to reach their desired destinations.
Desperate to escape war or driven by the hopes of a better life, more than 1 million refugees and economic migrants, an unprecedented number, illegally crossed the borders into Europe last year. Another 3,800, a third of them children, died while crossing the Mediterranean in a vain attempt to reach Europe, making it the deadliest year on record for such deaths.
The international refugee regime or system, which is based on the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Additional Protocol and implemented by the UNHCR, is being overwhelmed and proving inadequate in dealing with refugees and asylum seekers from failing states. Yet, it is feared that attempts to revise the current refugee regime will undermine rather than improve it.
Such is the case with an agreement struck between the European Union (EU) and Turkey in March 2016. Those migrants who illegally enter Greece from Turkey after March 20 will be deported back to Turkey. In exchange the EU will resettle one Syrian from a camp in Turkey for each Syrian who took an irregular route to Greece, with the maximum number capped at 72,000. Migrants currently in Greece could eventually be moved to other parts of the European Union, if they qualify for asylum.
The migration agreement also calls for Turkey to receive some $6.6 billion from the EU to assist with refugees in Turkey. Also promised is visa-free travel for Turkish citizens in most of Europe by mid-2016, if certain conditions are met, as well as the eventual resumption of negotiations with Turkey on EU membership.
A failing state is not a new phenomenon. In the past, however, the repercussions of a failing state were largely contained within its national borders. With an increasingly interconnected, globalized and mobile world, a failing state has disastrous consequences not only for its own inhabitants, but also for neighboring countries, as well as distant nations as has become disturbingly evident in recent years.
In particular, the surge in the numbers and populations of failing states poses serious dangers to world economic growth, development efforts and international security. The proliferation of failing states creates conditions and breeding grounds under which repressive kleptocracies, transnational crime, external incursions, armed extremists and terrorist groups can thrive and expand, resulting in among other things potential costly and perilous quagmires for foreign powers and regional and international organizations that opt to intervene.
The demographic realities of failing states can no longer be dismissed or postponed by political pronouncements, lofty goals or future promises. In addition to developmental issues such as poverty, employment, health, security, governance and political legitimacy, the international community needs to effectively address the faltering global refugee system and the vexing problem of illegal immigration, including smuggling and human trafficking.
Admittedly, some solutions to the seemingly intractable problems of failing states are being pursued. National, regional and international efforts are underway to improve the lot of failing states.
Those efforts encompass national dialogues, encouraging peace, reconciliation and state building, holding fair and peaceful elections, creating national priorities and accountability, monitoring specific developmental objectives and promoting economic resilience. Such initiatives require commitments of substantial resources and long-term support from development partners to address critical issues including security, governance, food, water, health, education, housing, equality, gender, employment and environment.
That no country has yet graduated from being considered a fragile state to a stable one provides little encouragement or optimism that the efforts currently underway will prove sufficient to solve the overwhelming problems of failing states. Clearly, radically new, innovative and comprehensive initiatives are needed in order for countries to transition from a failing to a stable state.
Joseph Chamie is a former director of the United Nations Population Division and Barry Mirkin is a former chief of the Population Policy Section of the United Nations Population Division.
Licensed from Inter Press Service
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Maan News Agency |
BETHLEHEM (Maan) Palestinians on Saturday marked the 68th anniversary of the massacre of more than 100 Palestinians civilians carried out by Zionist paramilitary groups in the village of Deir Yassin in 1948 prior to the establishment of Israel.
Deir Yassin has long been a symbol of Israeli violence for Palestinians because of the particularly gruesome nature of the slaughter, which targeted men, women, children, and the elderly in the small village west of Jerusalem.
The number of victims is generally believed to be around 107, though figures given at the time reached up to 254, out of a village that numbered around 600 at the time.
The Deir Yassin massacre was led by the Irgun group, whose head was future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, with support from other paramilitary groups Haganah and Lehi whose primary aim was to push Palestinians out through force.
Records of the massacre describe Palestinian homes blown up with residents inside, and families shot down as they attempted to flee.
The massacre came in spite of Deir Yassin residents efforts to maintain positive relations with new Jewish neighbors, including the signing of pact that was approved by Haganah, a main Zionist paramilitary organization during the British Mandate of Palestine.
An Israeli psychiatric hospital now lies on the ruins of Deir Yassin, the remainder of which was reportedly bulldozed in the 1980s to make way for Jewish housing and incorporated as a neighborhood of Jerusalem. Streets of the neighborhood hold names of Irgun militiamen who carried out the massacre.
The massacre was one of the first in what would become a long line of attacks on countless Palestinian villages, part of a broader strategy called Plan Dalet by Zionist groups to strike fear into local Palestinians in hopes that the ensuing terror would lead to an Arab exodus, to ensure only Jews were left in the Jewish state.
Thus the attack on Deir Yassin took place a month before the UN Partition Plan was expected to be carried out, and was part of reasons later given by neighboring Arab states for their intervention in Palestine.
The combination of forced expulsion and flight that the massacres what would later become known among Palestinians as the Nakba, or catastrophe precipitated left around 750,000 Palestinians as refugees abroad. Today their descendants number more than five million, and their right to return to Palestine is a central political demand.
The anniversary of the deadly razing of the village comes as modern day Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank continue to fight for their livelihood in the face of illegal Israeli settlement expansion, widespread detention campaigns, extrajudicial executions by Israeli forces, and a surge in housing demolitions most recently leaving 124 Palestinians homeless in a single day.
Via Maan News Agency
Related video added by Juan Cole:
Journeyman Pictures: Deir Yassin: The Agony Israel/Palestine
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |
The cessation of hostilities in Syria never included Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) or al-Qaeda (the Nusra Front or Support Front), but it did include some of the de facto allies of al-Qaeda. The Syrian Arab Army and its Shiite militia allies, with Russian air support, have taken advantage of the relative quiet in much of the country to roll back Daesh from Palmyra and some other towns.
But even as Daesh has been set back, al-Qaeda has recovered some of the territory lost to the SAA earlier this year southwest of Aleppo.
Al-Qaeda is allied with the Freemen of Syria (Ahrar al-Sham) and the Jerusalem Army among other hard line Salafi Jihadis. These groups are in turn allied with remnants of the old Free Syrian Army (mostly Muslim Brotherhood) that are supported by the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. That is, the US-backed groups are battlefield allies of the allies of al-Qaeda. US and Gulf-supplied weaponry routinely makes its way to al-Qaeda.
As the Syrian Arab Army and its Iranian and Iraqi militia allies have been busy to the east at Palmyra, al-Qaeda has spearheaded the reconquest from the regime of al-Eis, al-Khalidiya, Birna and Zitan, small towns along the strategic M5 highway linking Aleppo to Idlib Province (a province dominated by al-Qaeda and its allies).
These advances are mainly al-Qaedas, or al-Qaedas in conjunction with allies. A Shiite site observed, The attack on Zitan and Birneh is to be led exclusively by Jabhat al-Nusra fighters. Nevertheless, yesterdays capture of al-Khalidyah was carried about by joint troops of Jund Al-Aqsa, Ahrar ash-Sham, Ajnad Al-Sham, Jabhat Al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Armys 13th division.
The 13th Division of the FSA is a vetted group that receives CIA-supplied weaponry such as anti-tank t.o.W. munitions, which is to say that the United States is in bed with al-Qaeda in taking al-Khalidiya from the al-Assad regime.
Al-Qaeda also fired mortar shells at the Sheikh Maqsoud district of Aleppo, a Kurdish stronghold that the YPG militia could use to cut East Aleppo off from arms and ammunition from Turkey. The attack killed 18 and wounded more than 50.
In contrast, in the south of Damascus, in the Yarmouk Camp district, al-Qaeda and Daesh have been battling each other, and Daesh has taken some neighborhoods away from al-Qaeda.
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Related video:
al-Masdar: Russian airstrike targets ammo depot for al-Nusra in South Aleppo
Lawyers for several public school teachers in California requested [petition, PDF] on Friday that the US Supreme Court [official website] rehear the case of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association [materials] after a ninth justice is appointed. Last month, an equally divided court affirmed [JURIST report] a 2014 decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] in favor of union fees for non-union public employees. The petitioners believe the issues are too important to leave unsettled with an affirmance by an equally divided Court, and they are guaranteed to recur in the absence of a definitive ruling. In their petition, they urge the justices to reconsider because the union fees are of importance nationwide, affecting thousands of public employees, and the circuits are split on the issue.
Petitioner Rebecca Friedrichs is a California public school teacher who opted out of her union, the California Teachers Association [union website]. The court heard oral arguments [JURIST report] in January, and Friedrichs argued that she should not have had to affirmatively opt-out of dues to that union, as that policy did not uphold her First Amendment rights. The case arose out of a California law that upholds an opt-out policy for a portion of the fees of nonmembers. Unions cannot compel nonmembers to support its political activities, and unions must send annual notices to nonmembers itemizing the union fees. Under California law, a nonmember must affirmatively opt out yearly to avoid giving the portion of the fees they cannot be compelled to pay.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, center, talks with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., right, and Council Member Laurie Cumbo as she sits at the counter of Junior's restaurant in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Saturday, April 9, 2016. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
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As I get near the completion of an intense 5-year orthopedic surgery residency program, I had an interesting interaction with our hospitals sub-committee specifically tasked to address duty hour and resident fatigue issues.
As they gave examples from other departments about changes made to their programs regarding duty hours, a clear-as-mud connection was continually made. They spoke of improvements made as the result of residents stepping up to serve as whistleblowers in identifying duty hour violations within various programs. I quickly chimed in to get clarification. They were assuming that increasing compliance with duty hour restrictions set forth by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) meant an improvement in the residency program that went beyond improved compliance. It made me reflect on the last five years of my residency training. I asked myself, How many times have duty hour restrictions helped me? The answer is many.
Being in the first year group where PGY-1 residents (also known as interns) were specifically restricted to 16-hour workdays resulted in my not having to cover grueling 24 hour-plus call in the trauma and burn intensive care units, the general surgery department, or any other off-service rotation that was of minimal interest to me. I spent, at least, part of every single day of my intern year home with my wife. I had time to help train our new golden retriever puppy. It was great. A much different intern experience than that documented in the medical training cult classics such as the House of God and Intern Blues.
In later years of my training, our weekend work schedule was changed where unless you were on call, you would just sign out your services inpatients to the call team and they would see your patients over the weekend. Now I also have most of my weekends to myself. Sweet.
Then I asked myself: How many times have duty hour restrictions helped me become a better orthopedic surgeon? That was a much more difficult question to answer. In fact, I could not think of one specific situation where being well-rested from having the mandatory 8 hours between work days or being happy that I didnt have to work the weekend or handing off a patient that I took care of all night so that he was now someone elses responsibility made me a better orthopedic surgeon. I am a happier orthopedic surgery resident, and with all the talk these days about physician burnout maybe thats something. But that is not what the duty hour restriction is all about.
Time for a history lesson.
In 1984, a woman named Libby Zion presented to a New York teaching hospital emergency room. She was taking an antidepressant prescribed by her primary care doctor. She became agitated, was given a medication that was found out later to have a deadly interaction with the medication she was taking, resulting in her tragic demise. Her father, a prominent newspaper editor at the time, launched an investigation that became known as the Bell Commission. The conclusion was that residents who were working long hours and not directly supervised had been the cause of Libby Zions death. The interaction of the medications she was given was not widely known at the time, and the residents had been in contact with her primary care doctor about her treatment plan, which was customary at the time.
However, it was a very high-profile case that resulted in New York being the first state to enact work hour restrictions on residents. Other places followed, and it is now the standard for all American training programs. All under the assumption that restricting residents work hours results in safer patient care. I think the truth is something more like, Residents who are appropriately supervised and not overly fatigued provide the best combination of safe patient care while continuing to gain valuable clinical experience.
We have learned a few things since the ACGME instituted duty hour restrictions in 2003, and further restricted in 2011. Duty hour restrictions result in more patient handoffs and happier residents. Luckily the Flexibility in Duty Hour Restrictions for Surgical Trainees (FIRST) trial recently remonstrated that the frequent patient handoffs have not caused harm to patients, which was something feared by many of the opponents to duty hour restrictions.
So, as a resident who has enjoyed the benefits of the duty hour restrictions with no tangible evidence that a patient has been harmed and the overall feeling at the end of my training that my surgical education was adequate to be a safe, effective orthopedic surgeon, why am I so against the concept? The truth is, Im not. Kind of. Ill elaborate.
Medicine is a profession. Some, including my program director, refer to it as a calling. I think that this is mostly true. Many of us made the great sacrifices necessary to become physicians and surgeons because we feel that we have a responsibility to use the knowledge and skills we have acquired to help people. Therefore, it just doesnt feel right when we are told that we can only help people for 16 hours then we have to go home. Or we can help people for 24 hours then spend the next 4 hours transitioning care to the next team, then we have to go home. Or we can help people, but you have to be out of the hospital for 8 hours before you can come back to continue helping people, but thats if you worked 16 hours. If you worked 24 hours, you have to have 14 hours at home before you can come back to help people.
It actually sounds crazy when you think of it in that way. By forcing residents into working shifts, they may begin to watch the clock, waiting to pass off complex problems to the next person. Ive seen it. Emergency room doctors dont see patients that come in at the end of their shift and just wait to pass it off to the next shift, delaying patient care. An anesthesiologist prevents you from adding a case towards the end of the day because the day shift is leaving and the night shift can only run a fraction of the number of operating rooms, so you wait to do cases in the middle of the night. And even in orthopedics, a resident may be slow to work up a potentially operative case because they know they will be forced to go home and not get to do the case, so they just pass it off to the next guy. Ive seen all these scenarios happen, and they are all the result of the new clockwatching culture being mandated by the ACGME.
So, what do I propose as the solution? Lighten up, ACGME! The FIRST trial made the case that increased patient handoffs dont necessarily hurt surgical patients. Thats a win for you. It also suggested that when giving programs and residents the opportunity to stay late past the prescribed daily hour restrictions, residents were more satisfied with continuity of care and handoffs. And they all still managed to comply with the 80-hour week restriction.
Therefore, if a resident wants to work 35 hours one day so he can be a part of an educationally valuable case, let them. If an intern wants to work 20 hours one day so they can examine a patient one more time to get experience on how a compartment syndrome can evolve, let them. They will benefit from the experience, and their future patients will benefit from having a doctor who knows what will happen, because they were there to see it.
The hospital subcommittee that came to my program acknowledged that violations of the 80-hour rule were not the main problems that were faced. The majority of violations were related to the daily hour restrictions. Restrictions that the FIRST trial has suggested may be unnecessary. I fear that improvements will be sought after that focus more on compliance than the real improvements in patient safety, outcomes, and quality of education that we all seek. It is time to refocus our efforts and remember why we are all here in the first place.
The author is an anonymous orthopedic surgery resident.
Image credit: Shutterstock.com
LARRY STEAGALL/KITSAP SUN Marsha Rova and her son Erik Morgan walk past the home of the late Eva Rova Barnes in Poulsbo. A state Supreme Court decision this year invalidated a will signed by Barnes that gave her stake of the 46-acre homestead to her former mail carrier.
SHARE Contributed photo Eva Rova Barnes, on her 90th birthday, in 2006. Barnes died in 2011, weeks shy of her 95th birthday. LARRY STEAGALL/KITSAP SUN Rova Road, off Bond Road outside Poulsbo, is named after the family of Eva Rova Barnes. LARRY STEAGALL / KITSAP SUN Marsha Rova, niece of Eva Rova Barnes, unlocks the gate at the Rova farm in Poulsbo. The Rova family plans to turn land over to a conservancy or nonprofit after a state Supreme Court decision returned the land to the family.
By Andrew Binion of the Kitsap Sun
POULSBO The late Eva Rova Barnes was strong-willed and lived life on her own terms. Everyone who knew her agrees on this fact, if nothing else.
Whether she knew what she was doing when she cut her family out of her will, and instead bequeathed her stake in her family's 46-acre Poulsbo homestead to her mail carrier, is a question that ultimately had to be decided in January by the state Supreme Court.
Rova Road, off Bond Road outside Poulsbo, is named after Barnes' family. Near the bend in the road lies her parents' original 21 acres, bought in 1918 when Barnes was 3, along with the 25 acres bought by Barnes and her husband, Ray. It was there that the Barneses raised their daughter, Karolyn.
Both Ray and Karolyn died before Barnes, leaving her with no direct descendants.
When Barnes died in 2011, weeks shy of her 95th birthday, her will gave her sizable stake in the 46 acres, along with other nearby real estate and the rest of Barnes' property, to her friend and caretaker, Michelle Velarde, whom she got to know years before as her mail carrier.
Barnes' closest blood relatives, her nieces and nephews, contested the will, starting a legal battle over whether Barnes was freely making her own decisions at the end of her life. In January the state's high court upheld the trial judge's ruling that Velarde had exercised undue influence over Barnes, voiding the last will that gave the property to Velarde and her ex-husband, and turned the estate to Barnes' family.
The 8-0 ruling reversed an appellate court decision that incorrectly "reweighed" the evidence from the trial in Kitsap County Superior Court, justices found. The trial court had ruled that Barnes' last will coincided with her increasing dependence on Velarde and her widening rift from her family. The court also found that Velarde had "fanned the flames" of the anger and mistrust between Barnes and her family.
A FORCEFUL PERSONALITY
The "undue influence" case drew attention of attorneys inside and outside of the state and highlights what Barnes' family says are the risks facing vulnerable adults. The family nearly lost land that had been in their pioneer family for a century. They plan to turn it over to a nonprofit or land conservancy.
The land holds special memories for the Rovas. Just being back on the property, among the trees he climbed as a boy, is enough to send nephew John Rova, 67, into a reverie.
"I'm 13 while I'm standing here," he said.
"She had everything she ever had," said Vicki Rova Mueller, Barnes' niece, who described her late aunt as "feisty" and a person who had a tendency to hoard. "She just didn't get rid of stuff. For her to give anything away is a big deal, but to then realize somehow she gave everything away, that was another piece, it helped us realize something had gone awry."
Velarde said she didn't ask for the fight and was honoring her friend's final wish.
"They say I exerted undue influence over Eva, Eva exerted undue influence over me," Velarde said. "Eva did exactly what she wanted to do. She was the boss."
Kevin Cure, the attorney for the Rovas, said that because of Barnes' mental and physical difficulties, she was susceptible to being manipulated.
"She had become very paranoid, very concerned that her family the only family she had, the family she had been close to her whole life was trying to put her in a nursing home and wanted to develop the homestead," Cure said. "We were able to show that Michelle (Velarde) fanned that fire, and encouraged that line of thinking, or else didn't discourage it, and that was to her benefit."
THE FALL
Barnes lived alone and in 2009 she fell in her kitchen and was on the floor for more than two days. Velarde said she ultimately realized what had happened and called 911. Velarde said she was there when Barnes was taken out on a stretcher, and when Barnes saw Velarde, she said: "I knew you would find me."
Barnes was insistent on returning home and was adamant that she did not want to live in a nursing home. She had been hoarding newspapers and other items, and the fire department said the house was too dangerous as is, and needed to be cleaned up. The Rovas and Velarde cleaned it, and at some point Barnes' address book went missing. It was a treasured memento for Barnes, and she blamed her family for its disappearance. It was during this time that Velarde said her friendship with Barnes became closer, and Velarde began helping Barnes so that she could remain in her home.
"I got the real treasure, they can have the dirt," Velarde said, who noted she resented being painted as a "greedy little mongrel."
The family contends it made efforts to visit and include Barnes but allege Velarde had made changes to Barnes' phone plan that prevented easy contact and interfered in other ways.
"That's the thing that kills me, that she took her away from us," said Marsha Rova, another of Barnes' nieces. "We'll never get those years back with her."
Velarde said her actions were in service to her friend and have been twisted to make her into a villain. She admits to changing Barnes' phone plan, which is cited as one of the ways she allegedly isolated Barnes, but Velarde said it was to help save Barnes money. The court noted a mortgage payment toward Velarde's house cleared Barnes' account on the day she died and was written by Velarde when Barnes was in or close to being in a coma.
Velarde admits that she was in financial straits, but she had been essentially living at Barnes' house as her friend was dying, sleeping next to her, providing round-the-clock care and Barnes knew she needed help with her mortgage and insisted on helping her.
"I was Eva's friend, I walked her all the way home, I couldn't do anything different," she said.
LAST WILL
Jeff Tolman, Barnes' attorney, prepared the will in which Barnes bequeathed her estate to Velarde. Because he was a witness in the case and serves as Poulsbo Municipal Court judge and knows Kitsap's other judges, Clallam County Superior Court Judge Brooke Taylor was brought in to conduct the trial.
Tolman said he took the unusual steps, in what was already an unusual case, of setting up a meeting between Barnes and the family a meeting Tolman said did not go well along with having Barnes sign another document specifying why she wanted to change her will. Tolman did this on top of asking Barnes the typical detailed questions attorneys usually ask when changing a will.
Tolman said he wouldn't have proceeded if he thought Barnes didn't have the capacity to understand what she was doing. One analysis of the decision, by a law firm from Arizona, found that although Barnes did have the capacity to change her will, it was procured by undue influence. One fact cited by attorneys was that Velarde drove Barnes to Tolman's office.
Velarde said she had no choice but to drive Barnes, saying that Barnes would have tried to drive herself and that she had her license taken away.
In the analysis by the Arizona firm, the author wrote it is natural for people to want to include their caregivers in their wills, however: "Such gifts are always suspect because of the position of trust and power that the caregiver holds over the senior."
"I don't have a dog in the fight, other than that my clients sign wills that accurately reflect their wishes," Tolman said. In light of the steps he had taken, Tolman said he had hoped the Supreme Court would have given attorneys in his position some guidance. "As a lawyer, what obligation do I have?" Tolman said. "If I believe you know what you are doing, my job is not to argue with you."
Barnes was never formally diagnosed with dementia, but there were findings that she had been suffering from some progressive cognitive impairment. Velarde disputes that, saying that Barnes had good days and bad days but remained sharp.
"She had 90-plus years of memories, and they were all there," Velarde said
INVESTIGATION
The family is split on how hard to allege wrongdoing by Velarde through the Postal Service. Marsha Rova said the public should know about the risks of vulnerable adults, but John Rova said jeopardizing Velarde's livelihood wouldn't help anybody.
"We have to move on," John Rova said.
Velarde remains employed by the Postal Service, according to a statement from Postal Service spokesman Ernie Swanson, who wrote in an email that an investigation has been launched by the Office of the Inspector General "based on the most recent court decision."
For Velarde's part, she said it was an honor to know Barnes but wishes she hadn't been named in the will.
"Look what happened to me," Velarde said.
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By the Kitsap Sun editorial board
The South Kitsap School District's board, having seen a bond measure narrowly defeated in February, is asking the community again to support a $127 million commitment that would primarily construct a new high school.
The measure narrowly failed on Feb. 9, falling a few dozen votes shy of the 60 percent supermajority needed. The district's board and bond supporters don't seem to take that response as a firm "no," due to such a narrow margin, and decided to ask again, hoping to increase the number of participants backing the school project.
Our editorial board endorsed the measure earlier this year, and without any changes to details our position remains the same it's expensive, but also an investment that this community should make. Population is growing in South Kitsap and a plan to move ninth-graders into the current high school is already in the works. A new building that can accommodate the increase in students over the coming five years, when the building would open, as well as improve curriculum through facilities suited to today's needs is a down payment on the community's future. Moving forward should pair in coming years with a larger investment in education from the state level, provided the Legislature finally comply with the McCleary ruling, to help SK schools make a dramatic leap forward. We can get behind that concept.
But we'll also note that April's election makes for an expensive question, running a single-item ballot. Perhaps that's a pretty good indication of how pressing the district's board sees the need, and worth wagering the election bill (about $90,000) as well as its reputation among those opposed to the bond the first time around.
It's unusual to repeat a vote on the same measure in such a short time frame, and maintaining the language means there's unlikely to be any change in attitude among those who voted the first time. The strong feelings on both sides illustrate that. So any change in result is up to new voters thus, a campaign to get out the vote by supporters, and an opposition that is now more vocal and coordinated.
Our board's hope, rather than rooting for a "yes" or "no", lies in seeing a higher turnout than the 42 percent seen in February. We encourage more South Kitsap voters on all sides to participate by April 26. The information and arguments are out there, including reprised lobbying from three perspectives on the facing page today, and supporters or opponents have had months to communicate the pro or con stance.
The school district seems to be asking for a more definitive answer so give it to them.
The Kitsap Sun editorial board is Editor David Nelson; Opinion Editor emeritus Jim Campbell; and community members Martha Burke, Susanne Hughes, Bart Kale, Drayton Jackson and Jim Stark.
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"Bernie is doing well, but he can't possibly win the nomination," a friend wrote to me in an email for what seemed like the thousandth time.
My friend attached an article from one of the nation's leading newspapers showing how far behind Bernie Sanders remains in delegates. But the article failed to distinguish between superdelegates, the vast majority of whom are party insiders supporting Hillary Clinton, and pledged delegates.
As of now, Clinton has about 24 percent more pledged delegates than Bernie Sanders. That's still a sizable gap, but it hardly makes Sanders' candidacy an impossibility.
Clinton's lead in superdelegates could vanish if Bernie gains a majority of pledged delegates. That's what happened in 2008, when many of the superdelegates who initially supported her later flipped to then-Sen. Barack Obama.
Since mid-March, Sanders has been on a roll. He has won six out of the seven Democratic primary contests, and he's won them big, beating Clinton by 40 percentage points or more in Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii and Washington. On Tuesday, he took Wisconsin.
The enthusiasm for Sanders isn't waning. If anything, it's growing. In Idaho and Alaska, he inspired record-breaking primary turnouts, attracting thousands of new voters. He did the same thing in Colorado, Kansas, Maine and Michigan.
In March, Sanders raised $44 million, a new monthly high for his White House bid. The campaign's previous fundraising record was set in February, when it raised $43.5 million, compared to Clinton's $30 million. And most of Sanders' money has been in small donations so far, more than 6.5 million contributions from 2 million individual donors.
Sanders is still drawing huge crowds. Last week, 18,500 showed up to hear him speak in the South Bronx.
Young people continue to flock to the Sanders campaign.
Yet if you read The Washington Post or The New York Times, or watch CNN or even MSNBC, or listen to the major pollsters and pundits, you'd come to the same conclusion as my friend.
Every success by Sanders is met with a story or column or talking head whose message is "but he can't possibly win."
Or the media simply don't report on his campaign. Early on, the prestigious Columbia Journalism Review noted that Sanders' candidacy had been ignored by the mainstream media "as nearly as they could a sitting U.S. senator who entered the presidential race."
Some Sanders supporters speak in dark tones about a media conspiracy against him.
I doubt one exists. The mainstream media are incapable of conspiring with anyone or anything. They wouldn't dare try. Their reputations are on the line. If the public stops trusting them, their brands are worth nothing.
The real reason the major national media can't see what's happening is they exist inside the bubble of establishment politics, centered in Washington, and the bubble of establishment power, centered in New York. So they're most interested in the personalities of the candidates, and in the people and resources backing them.
Within this frame of reference, it seems nonsensical that Sanders could possibly win the nomination. He's a 74-year-old Jew from Vermont, originally from Brooklyn, who calls himself a Democratic socialist.
He wasn't even a member of the Democratic Party until recently, has never been a fixture in the Washington or Manhattan circles of power and influence, and has no major backers among the political, corporate or Wall Street elites of America.
Because the major media are habituated to personalities and power, they haven't been attending to Sanders' message or to its resonance among Democratic and independent voters (as well as many Republicans).
The media don't know how to report on political movements. Yet a big part of Sanders' candidacy is less about him than about the "political revolution" his followers want to bring about.
The major media haven't noticed how determined Americans are to reverse the increasing concentration of wealth and political power that have been eroding our economy and democracy.
So it's understandable the media continue to marginalize Bernie Sanders, and all he represents. But it's way too early to count Sanders out.
And even if he loses the nomination, the movement he's spawned isn't going away. It's one of the biggest stories of our time.
Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich is a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of "Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future." He blogs at www.robertreich.org.
The NZ Initiative was born out of a merger of the NZ Institute and the Business Roundtable. When it was formed, there was interest about whether it would just be the NZ Business Roundtable under a different name.
The NZBR made a great contribution to New Zealand, but in its latter years was seen as too ideological and had a fractious relationship with many political parties.
I think the NZ Initiative has done really well to be a consistent and intelligent policy and ideas shop, while being able to work constructively with politicians across the political spectrum. As they approach many issues from a broadly classical liberal perspective, they of course do not have everyone agree with them. But their contributions are seen as thoughtful and constructive.
Their annual report showcases what they have achieved in the last year, and is a good read. But it is two of the quotes I wish to copy:
I often disagree with the New Zealand Initiatives proposals but thats the point. We need more challenging ideas, quality research and thought leadership in New Zealand, not less. The New Zealand Initiative makes a valuable contribution to robust debate in this country. I wish there were more institutions like them, across the spectrum, committed to finding solutions to the great challenges of our time. James Shaw, Green Party Co-Leader I appreciate the Initiatives prolific and much needed contribution to policy debate. We dont always agree but the debate is always worth having. Phil Twyford MP, Labour Spokesperson for Housing, Building and Construction, and Auckland Issues
I couldnt imagine the former NZBR having a Labour and Green MP talk about their valuable contribution and useful debates. Its a sign of their success.
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Trans-Tasman reports:
Roaches have infested the press gallery. Some will take this opportunity to make obvious and uncalled for jokes but seriously: the press gallery kitchen is infested with cockroaches, and worse, the press gallery building is the only part of Parliament not made earthquake safe, and there seems no great urgency to make it safe.
Are they sure it wasnt just Patrick Gower? (just kidding Paddy)
The political parties have different stances on the issue. National praises gallery members for their resilience and talks about doing more with less, like the public sector, although most news organisations have been doing more with less for a lot longer than the public sector has had to. Not a lot is going to change though, because it might be a bit unpopular.
Labour has some ideas for getting rid of the cockroaches, but these are not policy. There will be a Commission of Cockroaches. And position papers and lots of think pieces about what policy might be, one day, perhaps around 2025.
Winston Peters says he has been warning about cockroaches since 1984 but these folk in the media never listened, and it serves them right. But he will buy them a drink anyway.
The Green party is wondering if there is some way to get cockroaches onto buses or trains. It is also worried about emissions from this number of cockroaches.
The Maori Party is concerned the cockroaches might make stories which are disrespectful, and suggests they go and work for Radio New Zealand. Peter Dunne and David Seymour are wondering if the cockroaches can be signed up as party members.
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The Technical Society of Knoxville will meet at the Crowne Plaza at 11:30 a.m. on Monday. The speakers will be Earl Bandy and William Winters of the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. The topic of their presentation will be coal mine permitting in Tennessee: highlights and issues. Visitors are welcome. For more information go to TechnicalSociety.net.
A disability resources and transition fair will be held at the Blount County Public Library on Monday 3:30-5:30 p.m. For people with disabilities or their families or those who work with them (educators, service providers, etc.), this fair will provide information about community resources and local businesses.
The University of Tennessee Medical Center's Health Information Center will host "Harry Potter's World: Renaissance Science, Magic, and Medicine," an exhibit developed and produced by the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, from Monday through May 21. The traveling exhibition was created to explore the link between Harry Potter and the history of science using materials from the National Library of Medicine.
The Helen Ross McNabb Center will host a free community prevention walk during Child Abuse Prevention Month on Tuesday. The walk will take place at Market Square 2:30-5 p.m.
The Knox County Health Department, in conjunction with the East Tennessee Regional Health Office of the Tennessee Department of Health, will conduct door-to-door interviews as part of a training exercise on Wednesday and Thursday. Staff members from both health departments will interview select residents in Knox, Blount and Sevier counties. Data collected will help officials gain knowledge about residents' preparedness for emergencies.
The Smoky Mountain Paralegal Association will hold its monthly meeting on Thursday at noon in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Knoxville. The speaker will be attorney Wayne A. Ritchie, II of Ritchie, Dillard, Davies & Johnson, P.C. He will present the topic of ethics. The presentation will provide 1.0 hour of CLE. For more information, contact Caroline Sudlow at 865-215-3676 or firstvice@smparalegal.org.
Knoxville-Knox County Metropolitan Planning Commission will meet Thursday at 1:30 p.m. in the Main Assembly Room of the City County Building, 400 West Main Street.
SHARE Bonnie C. Carroll Bryan Petett Dick Bales Tim Duff
Bonnie C. Carroll, founder and CEO of Information International Associates Inc., received an Enterprising Women of the Year Award at the 14th Annual Enterprising Women of the Year Awards & Conference held in Miami. She was among honorees from throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and other countries.
For the 17th year in a row, Coldwell Banker Commercial Wallace and Wallace, Realtors was named the No. 1 Coldwell Banker Commercial office in Tennessee. Bryan Petett was named the top Coldwell Banker Commercial agent for the state and received the Silver Circle of Distinction Award. Dick Bales and Tim Duff received the Bronze Circle of Distinction Award.
Preston Hawkins, Sarah Sheppeard and Paul Whitt have been named shareholders at Lewis Thomason. Shannon van Tol has been named special counsel.
John Hunter has joined Barge, Waggoner, Sumner and Cannon Inc. as client service leader. His responsibilities will include client services and business relationship development that promote the firm across all disciplines in the greater Knoxville market, as well as supporting Barge Waggoner's transportation services firm-wide.
The University of Tennessee board of trustees approved a proposal for Oak Ridge National Laboratory Director Thom Mason to receive an honorary doctorate in science. He will be UT's 13th recipient. Mason, an experimental condensed matter physicist, will receive the degree and deliver remarks at the graduate hooding ceremony on May 12 at 5 p.m. at Thompson-Boling Arena.
Nucleus Knoxville announced its 2016 board of directors. The officers are: John Thurman, past president; Hunter Purnell, president; Courtney Read, vice president; Lane McCarty, secretary; Brad Adams, treasurer; board members: Gavin Baker, history chair; Matt Carr, programs chair; Erin Burns Freeman, membership chair; Josh Knight, social co-chair; Chad Martin, education chair; Ryan Moffett, collections chair; Liz Nother, communication chair; Carson Purnell, new member chair; Lisa Rottmann, social co-chair.
Regions has named Sharon Potter as trust adviser. Potter will serve Cumberland County, Roane County, Rhea County, Morgan County, and parts of Knoxville.
Tennova Healthcare has named Steve Simpson as chief executive officer of Lakeway Regional Hospital in Morristown, effective April 18. Simpson has served as interim chief executive officer at the hospital since March 14. He replaces Clyde Wood, who recently was named chief executive officer at North Knoxville Medical Center.
The University of Tennessee board of trustees approved a proposal to rename the Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences as the Shull Wollan Center A Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences, named in honor of physicists Clifford Shull and Ernest Wollan, pioneers in neutron scattering. The board also approved the renaming of the Center for Business and Economic Research as the Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research, named in honor of UT alumni Randy Boyd and his wife, Jenny.
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Our youngest child will be graduating high school in about month and my wife and I will soon be empty nesters. Quite literally, as I think about this season of life we are in, I look out my window and can also see the physical season changing from winter to spring. There is not much better than spring time in East Tennessee. Clear blue skies, green grass and blooming dogwoods are a sure sign we are on our way out of winter. However, you can never get too comfortable because it seems we still get our share of freezing temperatures and even snow into April. We look so forward to spring, while in the cold gray throes of winter, that sometimes we overlook what goes hand-in-hand with the new blooms; allergies. I have lived in East Tennessee for 48 years and it would seem our bodies should somehow adapt to this change and be able to ward off the itchy throat, watery eyes and runny nose that is so prevalent. I have talked with both long time residents and new transplants alike and everyone seems to be fighting the same battle.
The transition into an East Tennessee springtime is a lot like the transitions we see as our clients retire. There are constants that we need to be aware of and prepare for in advance. Then, there are always those aspects of change that are unpredictable and we must be adaptable. How can we be ready?
First, know that change is going to happen. Acknowledge it, be ready for it and have a plan. We know when we see that first Bradford pear blooming that allergies are going to be a possibility so we should have our Zyrtec ready to go in advance. In the same way, we should have a plan in place for what we want our retirement to look like and make sure we have the tools on hand to get there. Those tools might be a budget, a retirement plan and a low cost, diversified investment portfolio.
Next, we must live the plan and remember to keep our long-term focus. Short term distractions and challenges are the norm. Because of the extreme weather swings we may go from the air conditioner to heat in a moment's notice. Similarly, we need to be prepared for career changes, unpredictable investment markets, or frightening world events. Our vision needs to be on staying the course and not letting fear or change distract us on the path we have set.
Lastly, enjoy the moment and stay prepared because the next change is on its way. On those days where expectation meets reality and we have the perfect East Tennessee spring day we need to embrace it and enjoy it while we can because summer humidity may be around the corner. Just like our retirement plan, we enjoy each day and all the messiness that comes with living life to the fullest. We just don't know what the next day brings.
Our expectations are ideal springtime conditions. It's what we look forward to and remember. However, we still need to be prepared for the allergies and cold snaps. The same holds true for life's transitions. Prepare and develop a well thought out financial plan for what we expect, but be prepared for distractions and unpredictable events. If our plan is sound and adaptable we will enjoy and thrive through every season.
SHARE Knoxville firefighters respond to several small fires set around the Knoxville College campus Saturday night. (Kristi Nelson/News Sentinel)
By News Sentinel Staff
Knoxville Fire Department firefighters were kept busy Saturday putting out several small fires on and around Knoxville College campus that appeared to be intentionally set, fire officials said.
As firefighters responded to grass fires near the rear of the college campus around 8 p.m., they also discovered two fires inside McGranahan Hall, a former dormitory, said KPD Assistant Chief Jack Banks.
After extinguishing a small fire on the main floor, firefighters found mattresses and trash on fire in a second-floor room. A small explosion blew the windows out, Banks said. He said the fires were extinguished within a half-hour.
A few buildings on campus still have power, Banks said, but McGrananhan did not.
Meanwhile, a shed in an alley at Beaumont Avenue and Toms Street also was afire, and there was another grass fire near Wesley House on Reynolds Street.
Firefighters had responded to an earlier grass fire in the same courtyard Friday night, but no buildings were involved.
Banks said the fires were intentionally set, "likely by kids," and an arson investigation is ongoing.
Jane Redmond, management team leader for the now-closed college, said since the property isn't actually being used, it's hard to keep the buildings secure. She said some have had "vagrants" living in them.
"It's just so unguarded, the campus," Redmond said. "How do you keep them out?
Redmond said the college's board is "working vigilantly" to offer classes at the college again. The historically black college, founded as a teachers' college in 1875 as part of the missionary effort of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, closed in 2015. It had only 11 students its last semester.
The board is exploring options to commercially develop a portion of the property, Redmond said, while still maintaining some of the historic buildings as part of the reopened Knoxville College.
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By Tom Humphrey of the Knoxville News Sentinel
NASHVILLE The multimillion-dollar business of influencing Tennessee's Legislature saw increased payments to lobbyists and a jump in expenditures by their clients on wining and dining last year, according to new figures compiled by the Tennessee Ethics Commission.
On the other hand, the amount of money going to so-called "lobbying-related expenditures" typically advertising or phone bank messages that urge residents to call their legislators to voice support or opposition to a pending bill declined from 2014 levels.
Combining all types of spending in 2015 disclosed, as much as $74 million was spent on lobbying during the year, compared to maximum reported spending of $69.2 million in 2014. But it also could have been as little as $30 million in 2015, up from about $27 million in 2014.
The figures are not precise because of the way lobbyist-compensation and lobbying-related expenditures are reported. Under a law enacted in 2006, lobbyists and their employers must report such spending only within a ranges for example, between $50,000 and $100,000 and need not give an exact figure. One category is simply "less than $10,000."
This is in contrast to some states that require precise reporting of all payments to lobbyists a notion staunchly and successfully opposed by Tennessee lobbyists' lobbying during the special session on reform of state ethics government ethics statutes decade ago that put the present law in place. The special session came a year after five legislators were charged with bribery-related offenses in an FBI investigation. Before then, there was no reporting requirement whatsoever for lobbyist spending.
the numbers
There were 569 lobbyists registered to represent 1,913 clients in Tennessee during 2015, according to Drew Rawlins, executive director of the Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance. In 2014, 557 lobbyists registered to represent 1,880 clients.
Lobbyist employers annually file two reports, covering six months each, and the second round of reports for 2015 was filed last month with tabulations completed last week by Ethics Commission staff. The following figures are combined totals from the two six-month reports for 2015:
Lobbyist compensation was somewhere between $25.8 million and $54.4 million. The range for 2014 was between $22.1 million and $48.7 million.
Lobbying-related expenditures were somewhere between $3.5 million and $19.6 million in 2015. The range for 2014 was from a minimum of $4.7 million to a maximum of $19.8 million.
Combining compensation and lobbying-related expenditures, the 2015 range is between a minimum of $29.3 million and a maximum of $73 million. The comparable figures for 2014: Between $26.8 million and $68.5 million.
Rawlins cautioned in an email, responding to an inquiry, that it is difficult to accurately assess whether the 2015 figures indicate a trend toward more money being paid to lobbyists and less on related expenditures, also known as "grassroots lobbying."
"Some of it can have to do with them reporting by ranges so we don't get an exact figure," he said. "It's hard to tell how much it went up or down."
In contrast to the broad ranges in the above categories, lobbyist employers must also report the exact amount spent on each event they host with legislators as invited guests. The 2006 law prohibited lobbyists from paying for out-of-state travel, but permits what are called "in-state events" provided all legislators are invited and that they are disclosed.
In 2015, spending on such events they range from providing coffee and doughnuts at morning gatherings to hear a lobbying pitch from some prominent person to fairly lavish affairs providing evening meals and alcoholic beverages for general conversations followed a trend of increasing annually in recent years.
Last year, there were 106 such events with total spending of $1,194,169, according to Rawlins. That was up from the previous record $720,039 spent on in-state events in 2014.
Add the $1.2 million on event spending to the lobbyists' compensation and lobbying-related expenditures and the overall 2015 lobbyist spending total reaches a maximum of more than $74 million. For comparison purposes, the state budget allocated a total of $41 million in taxpayer money to all operations of the Legislature for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. A minor item in that total is the base salary of $20,884 for each lawmaker or about $2.76 million for all 132 legislators combined.
The interests
The $74 million figure, of course, does not include what some would consider indirect efforts to influence legislators. Many groups that hire lobbyists also operate political action committees that make contributions to legislators' campaigns and many individuals working for corporations that employ lobbyists do so as well.
The Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry had the most expensive in-state event last year, spending $77,480.
AT&T, which traditionally hosts a reception to mark the start of each legislative session, spent $43,360 on its event last year, second most expensive after the Chamber. AT&T has already reported its spending on the event that opened the 2016 session in January: $57,297. That could indicate another increase in 2016, though the session is still underway and events are still being held with most other lobbyist employers not filing reports yet.
AT&T is also a traditional leader in payments of lobbyist compensation, sometimes reporting more than $1 million in a year in payments to lobbyists annually. In 2015, 16 lobbyists registered to represent the telecommunications company and it reported paying them somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 in compensation and somewhere between $20,000 and $50,000 in lobbyist-related expenditures.
In years past, AT&T's primary objectives in the Legislature have been passage of bills that substantially deregulated the telecommunications industry, a mission that was accomplished. In 2015 and 2016, a primary objective for the company's lobbying has been to block proposals that would allow municipalities to provide broadband Internet service to rural areas. That also has been successful so far.
Americans for Prosperity, a national organization that presents itself as an advocate for free enterprise, has been a leader in lobbyist-related expenditures in Tennessee spending a state record $1.1 million on direct mail, radio ads and events aimed at rallying voters to contact legislators in 2014 while spending relatively little on lobbyist payments.
AFP has been pushing repeal of the state's Hall tax on investment income, for example, starting in 2014 and continuing today with radio ads and video advertising on the Internet, and some on newspaper websites. It has also launched an ad campaign against any increase in the state's gas tax, which Gov. Bill Haslam has suggested is needed without offering any specific proposal.
Under state law, such groups relying on staff for direct lobbying as AFP does, registering three people as lobbyists are called upon to calculate the portion of their overall salary that is devoted to lobbying, then report that as compensation. In 2015, Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee reported spending less than $10,000 on compensation to three registered lobbyists in each of the two six-month reporting periods. But it reported spending somewhere between $250,000 and $350,000 on grassroots lobbying.
COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France Speckled sky gave way to bright blue and the sun took the edge off the chill wind coming off the English Channel as we stood at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. Half of the Americans dead 9,387 from D-Day and the Normandy campaign are at rest on the very bluffs they came to conquer in history's greatest amphibious assault.
Our guide was showing us on a map Pointe du Hoc, 8 miles west of the cemetery, and a photo of the dagger of cliffs U.S. Rangers scaled under withering fire from the Germans. My mind went to the 40th anniversary of D-Day when President Ronald Reagan spoke at Normandy and looked at the aged men who climbed those cliffs a lifetime before. They secured the place from which Nazi gunners could strafe Americans landing on Omaha Beach and Utah Beach.
"These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc," Reagan said. "These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war."
Bells sounded. In a few notes, we recognized the Star Spangled Banner. Our French guide fell silent as our entire group turned unprompted toward the bells, spontaneously honoring the sacrifices made by so many to end the evil of that age.
We were primed for poignant patriotism. In Arromanches, the small town above Gold Beach where the British came ashore, the stars and stripes flew beside the British, Canadian and French flags. Along country lanes, outside farm houses, Old Glory fluttered smartly.
The French have not forgotten. At least in Normandy.
They have not forgotten our sacrifice. Nor have they forgotten the cost of complacency. French President Francois Hollande, after the second horrific terrorist attack by the Islamic State in France last year, did not talk of "containment" or "degrading" the enemy. "We are in a war against terrorism, jihadism, which threatens the whole world," he said. "Terrorism will not destroy France, because France will destroy it."
In a theater at Arromanches, we heard British Prime Minister Winston Churchill from four years before D-Day. "We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans we shall defend our island whatever the cost may be," Churchill said. "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!"
We heard Allied commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower from the fateful day. "The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you," Eisenhower said to the troops. He ended, "We will accept nothing less than full victory."
We heard President Franklin D. Roosevelt unashamedly lead America in prayer. "Almighty God," FDR prayed, "Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity."
In the chapel at Normandy, sober words are cut in stone: "Their graves are the permanent and visible symbol of their heroic devotion and their sacrifice in the common cause of humanity." Hollande, like Roosevelt, Churchill and Eisenhower before, understands humanity is now under incessant, if asymmetrical, assault. Islamic terrorists' goal is to eradicate other religions by inflicting suffering on humanity to destroy Western civilization. Put bluntly, the ultimate aim of Islamic terrorism is Hillary Clinton in a burka and the pope's head on a pike.
As the bells at Normandy wafted east toward Paris, the way our boys went after D-Day, a trumpet sounded, taps mournfully echoing on the hillside. Between white crosses and stars of David, I prayed the haunting melody was for our brave dead and not the death of the West.
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They've never made movies like this.
In most cinematic adventures when the innocents are in peril from villains, it's not other villains who ride to the rescue. It's the good guys. But in winning the Wisconsin primary Tuesday, it was Bernie Sanders galloping in on horseback excuse me, on socialist nonsense to try to save the country from Hillary Clinton.
To be sure, in the Democratic race for the presidential nomination, Clinton is still the odds-on favorite to win. The polls have her ahead in the coming New York primary, and her pile of delegates is pretty darn high. Her greatest fear has to be honesty, though not her own. That's been missing for a long time.
No, what she has to fear is the non-political, frequently demonstrated honesty of James Comey, the FBI director who is closely involved in investigating whether she illegally endangered national security through use of a private email server as secretary of state. If politics are played in the Justice Department to get her off the hook, this official just might resign in protest, conceivably delivering a fatal blow to Clinton's presidential chances.
Sanders might then march to the White House, but would he be better? Not close. What we have in him is a 1960s hippie who never grew up, who accuses others of all kinds of bigotry even as he himself is bigoted against the rich to the point of hateful screeching and whose leftist ambitions would wreck the country if improbably effectuated.
Even some liberal economists say his math is something like two plus two equals one.
The New York Times interviewed a bunch who argued his proposals could expand the federal government by half. What he's talking about is free college for everyone, virtually free health care, largely free childcare and still other goodies. All of this could amount to a 50 percent yearly increase or more in spending, say some of the these economists, who also point out that the expansion's generally estimated cost of $18 trillion over 10 years could be higher, as much as $30 trillion.
Sanders says his taxes will pay for it and that they're mostly on the rich, even though the middle class will have to pay, too. He says the middle class will still come out ahead because of benefits that flow their way. Economists quoted in the Times say no they will take a hurtful hit, too.
One of Sanders' own economists makes things turn out OK by estimating, among other happy thoughts, that our economic growth will get up to 5.3 percent. The Times economists say sorry, but nope. That's a reach and a half. What Sanders' buddies are calculating is "puppies and rainbows," one analyst is quoted as saying.
Many of Sanders' young supporters would love free college. What they need is more colleges that teach that goods and services are never free, that someone always pays.
Jay Ambrose is a columnist for Tribune News Service. He may be reached at speaktojay@aol.com.
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"Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more."
H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Tennessee is known as the Volunteer State for a good reason. In East Tennessee alone, hundreds of organizations serve as conduits for people helping people.
The newly-formed Volunteer Knoxville effort facilitates connections between volunteers and opportunities to serve.
In just over a year Volunteer Knoxville has registered more than 6,000 volunteers seeking their chance to serve others.
One week each year, we turn to those who are focused on the good of others and say, "Thank you." National Volunteer Week was born in 1974 and boosted by President George H.W. Bush's famous "1,000 Points of Light" reference during his inauguration speech in 1989.
April 10-16 is set as the week when U.S. communities stop to thank those who serve others without asking something in return.
Locally, organizations such as the United Way of Greater Knoxville, Volunteer Knoxville and Community Shares are helping connect people with strong hands and warm hearts to those who need a hand out or maybe just a hand up.
According to Ben Landers, president of the United Way of Greater Knoxville, "Ours is truly a caring community. When someone is hungry, we feed them; homeless, we offer shelter; hurting we reach out a reassuring hand."
The news is full of examples of hate, violence and disrespect. However, if we look around, we see our neighbors helping each other in ways that are often seen only by the giver and the receiver.
How about you? Have you thought, "What can I do?"
In the Old Testament, property owners are admonished to refrain from harvesting the edges of their fields so that "poor people and foreigners" might find something to eat.
Is there an "edge" you've been keeping for yourself that you might share? Is there a talent you can apply, a resource you can invest, a place you can lead others to service?
We see first-hand how people share their time, treasures and talent through our work at the East Tennessee Community Design Center. The Design Center was founded in 1970 through the vision of the late architect Bruce McCarty and others to provide a way for those in the design professions to give back through their work.
Each year, area architects, landscape architects, planners and development professionals donate more than 1,000 hours of pro bono design services to help give a boost to projects where funding isn't available to pay for design.
Projects like the First Tee of Greater Knoxville, the Good Shepherd Center in Monroe County, Knoxville's Urban Wilderness and many more were developed or improved by the Design Center's efforts. Our board, staff and clients are indebted to these volunteers for helping give shape to abstract dreams, and we want to take this chance to say thanks. (See our website at www.communitydc.org for more information.)
The Knoxville area is blessed with many givers, but our continued prosperity depends on you, and you and you to help make our communities better.
If you should begin to think, "What can my small contribution really accomplish?" don't let that lull you into inaction. Each of Bush's "points of light" were small, but collectively they shone brightly.
I will leave you with this challenge, which can help create a place where you want your grandchildren to grow up: It is not possible that we all do everything it is critical that we each do something.
Wayne Blasius is executive director of the East Tennessee Community Design Center.
Donald Trump backers rightly saw last weekend's party maneuvering on Tennessee delegates to the Republican National Convention as undercutting their candidate's prospects for winning the presidential nomination, but they may have undercut those prospects further with their reaction.
Consider the case of Ken Gross, a member of the GOP's State Executive Committee representing Knox County who was appointed a Trump delegate one on a slate put together by state Republican Chairman Ryan Haynes and his staff after much negotiating and approved by the executive committee on a 40-25 vote.
If you're not familiar with the arcane rules for delegate selection and very few people are most of Tennessee's 58 delegates to the GOP convention were chosen by voting on individual delegate candidates in the March 1 presidential preference primary. But some are appointed by the executive committee and assigned to represent a designated candidate based on the presidential preference primary results. That was the focus of last weekend's meeting.
Trump is entitled to 33 of the 58 delegates; Ted Cruz gets 16; Marco Rubio nine.
Those arcane party rules call for the candidates to be consulted on those who will be designated to represent them as delegates. But the rules do not require the candidates' approval of the appointees. The Trump and Cruz campaigns had a list of the people they wanted to be appointed. Haynes and the party staff, after duly consulting with candidate representatives, honored some of the requests, but ignored others.
The Trump folk, led by Tennessee campaign director Daren Morris, declared themselves outraged at the selection of "anti-Trump" people to serve as Trump delegates, and Gross was one focus of their wrath. To make their point, Morris and others cited a Facebook post Gross made that characterized Trump as a "liberal Democrat."
But Gross says nobody with the Trump campaign bothered to consult with him. If they had done so, Gross says, he would have told them that the Facebook post was just a bit of routine back-and-forth banter that is part of every intra-party political campaign.
Gross said that since Trump won in Knox County, which he represents, he feels obliged to vote at the convention the way Trump wants him to vote not just for the first two ballots at a contested convention, as required by the state rules, but afterwards as well.
In other words, he was prepared to be an ultra-loyal Trump delegate but found himself denounced as a "Trojan horse," a pawn of the establishment. An anonymously written blog posted his phone number and urged people to call to criticize just as Trump supporters had posted Haynes' cellphone number and urged that he be badgered.
It's been enough, Gross said, to leave him questioning the idea of being an ultra-loyal Trump delegate after the two first two ballots, should the convention be contested.
The Cruz folk also didn't get their way on all appointed delegates. A standout on that front was the designation of Chris Devaney, former state GOP chairman, as a Cruz delegate. Let's just say that Cruz is not an establishment Republican candidate and Devaney is known as an ultra-establishment fellow, rather like Gov. Bill Haslam, a designated Rubio delegate.
The Cruz campaign, in contrast to the Trump troops, was diplomatically silent about the proceedings last weekend. If the convention is contested, that just might turn out to be a smart move.
Tennessee's Republican establishment is alarmed about the prospect of Trump as the party nominee, the fear being that he could do for Democrats what Barack Obama has done for Republicans in our state. Why, some were privately fretting last week that Trump as the nominee could lead to a loss of seats in the GOP's supermajority in the Legislature.
Haynes meticulously followed the rules in putting together a slate that, to win the required executive committee approval, needed to include people respected by a majority of panel's members, a rather exclusive club with divisions reflecting the extraordinary conflict within the GOP today.
By coincidence or otherwise, the aftermath could make the claims of an anti-Trump bias a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Read more from Tom Humphrey at "Humphrey on the Hill."
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Officials at the Tennessee Department of Human Services seem to be in denial about the agency's deplorable handling of federal funds for its nutrition programs.
In formal responses to recent audits and at a Senate subcommittee hearing last week, officials offered weak explanations of multiple instances of violating federal rules and accounting practices.
A bill passed last Monday is headed for Gov. Bill Haslam's desk that would require the department to submit to greater legislative scrutiny. That might not be enough, considering the agency's failures over the past five years.
At last week's hearing of the Senate Investigations and Oversight subcommittee, Comptroller Justin P. Wilson discussed the recent audits his office has completed and the department's inadequate responses. As reported by the Tennessean, Wilson said the Department of Human Services accounted for 34 of 72 major problems found across all state agencies last year. The most recent audit, released March 29, detailed $11.4 million in questionable spending, mostly involving the agency's food programs.
"You can't really solve a problem until you acknowledge that the problem is really there," Wilson said.
The problem is easily found. The latest audit contains numerous instances of mismanagement in federal food programs administered by DHS, which include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (commonly referred to as food stamps), Child and Adult Care Food Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and others. Many of the findings have been reported in previous audits.
The comptroller found DHS's slipshod accounting resulted in millions of dollars in questionable costs and exposed the state to interest liability for a portion of the federal funds. Errors resulted in overcharging the federal government for some activities and undercharging for others.
Personnel costs charged to the federal government lacked proper documentation, and in some instances federal dollars were used when state money should have been spent.
Lax oversight of food programs for poor children have made it difficult for the department to detect fraud, waste or abuse by contracted agencies that distribute the food, the comptroller determined. Nearly half the contracted agencies reviewed by the comptroller submitted inaccurate meal reimbursement claims. In one troubling finding, DHS could not verify whether contracted agencies were even qualified to participate in the Child and Adult Care Food Program.
Wilson's chief of staff, Jason Mumpower, said the department's answers to audit findings have been "unresponsive" at best and at worst "misleading or false."
The department's formal response disputed the questioned costs, claiming that all expenditures went toward allowed activities. Officials denied that the department failed to provide proper oversight of contract agencies, while explaining in great detail that feeding children takes priority over program integrity.
Human Services Commissioner Raquel Hatter told the subcommittee last week the department's responses "have been misrepresented or misunderstood." She said the department is improving the weaknesses in its programs.
The bill requiring more frequent reporting of DHS's activities is needed, but it will not solve the agency's widespread deficiencies. The longer the problems persist, the more public confidence in the agency's leadership will erode. Plus, by allowing the problems to fester, DHS officials practically are inviting federal authorities to investigate.
Alleviating hunger among low-income families should be among state government's highest priorities and is one of the hallmarks of a just society. The Haslam administration cannot allow DHS to continue failing the people of Tennessee.
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Tennessee's 109th General Assembly has been following a destructive path that is not in the best interests of Tennesseans.
Several Republicans in the House and Senate are members of the American Legislative Exchange Council, founded by billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch.
ALEC is made up of billionaires, millionaires, chief executive officers, special-interest groups and politicians on the federal and state levels.
What makes ALEC so unique and dangerous is that all meetings are shrouded in secrecy. CEOs and special-interest groups work in agreement with Tennessee legislators to vote on and draft model legislation that is introduced into the General Assembly as original Tennessee bills.
In April 2015, Sen. Bill Ketron of Murfreesboro reported in the Chattanooga Times Free Press that 22 legislators attended an ALEC conference in Washington, D.C.
Currently, ALEC's special-interest group Americans for Prosperity, our ALEC Republican lawmakers, Tennessee citizens and hospital association have clashed over Insure Tennessee.
Gov. Bill Haslam supports Insure Tennessee, but the Koch brothers do not want Medicaid expansion here, ensuring that 280,000 residents would be denied health insurance.
Petitions have been signed, and billboards have been erected across the state pleading with House Speaker Beth Harwell to bring Insure Tennessee to a vote. Regrettably, she will not change her position.
We Tennesseans hold our elected officials to high standards, and it is no longer a secret that the incentive for our lawmakers to operate in the shadows of ALEC is because they receive sizable campaign donations. We expect better from Harwell. She should be a leader and show us that she can step up and do the right thing by getting her house in order. Otherwise, the voters of Tennessee will help her clean house.
Donna Graham, Afton, Tenn.
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Whatever happened to common sense?
One recent morning I watched on television several high-ranking military officers stating they were convinced that some of the released Guantanamo Bay prisoners were returning to the battlefield and were killing Americans. Common sense should tell us that these prisoners were in Guantanamo Bay because they were considered dangerous, and releasing them is contrary to our mission of defeating the Islamic State. And yet, this administration is now making plans to release even more prisoners in order to fulfill an 8-year-old campaign promise.
We have 535 members of Congress, but there has been very little done congressionally to resist President Barack Obama's pursuit of his legacy at the expense of American lives. I am well into senior citizenship and have never seen, in my lifetime, such wanton disregard for America's future.
Paul J. Mattina, Knoxville
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No student should feel singled out at school for being different. Non-transgendered students don't deserve to be stigmatized by lawyers or judges or legislators who exploit the situation. Lawyers, often paid by the government to root out discrimination, real or imagined, believe non-transgendered students don't deserve the same rights as transgendered students.
Students use restrooms based on their gender. Male students use male restrooms; female students use female restrooms. Since there are no other biological genders, students who are confused about their gender can examine their physical bodies to learn which they are. Just thinking you are someone does not make that true. Ask Larry Dawson, the Tennessee preacher who "perceived" he was God and was shot at the Capitol earlier this year. No one took him seriously. Tennessee schools should be open and welcoming places for all students, including non-transgendered students.
The great concern in this case, which is sadly true of many other issues, is the prospect of the state losing federal funding and/or facing costly litigation. Tennessee legislators should take stock of how much state sovereignty has been surrendered to federal bureaucrats just for the money.
Robert Roark, Knoxville
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I am writing in response to the letter "There's no need to tote guns to parks." I can't help but think that the writer was motivated by politics rather than his true beliefs.
The poor man is creeped out by guns? I feel bad for him. What's difficult to understand is that he has lived here for 18 years. Was he in a shell? For 18 years the writer, assuming he gets out in public, has been surrounded by people who legally carry guns. There are more than a half-million of us. Now suddenly guns are permitted in parks and he says, "Guns creep me out." Where has he been for the past 18 years? He has been in drugstores, supermarkets, theaters and countless public places rubbing elbows with people legally carrying guns, and he probably didn't even know it. I must remind him that the legislation he is concerned about was signed into law by Gov. Bill Haslam, once mayor of Knoxville.
The present mayor objects to the law, has violated it and is being sued, at taxpayer expense. Could that be the real reason the author wrote his letter? It seems OK for the mayor to go to the park with armed security, but the average citizen should go unarmed and just hope nothing bad happens to him.
In closing, I'll just say that letter is full of typical anti-gun liberal rhetoric, and my advice is that he move to a place that is not "a lousy place to live" perhaps where he came from in 1998.
Charles Thoms, Seymour
By Lee Hyo-sik
An artist's impression of the 38-story Dream Tower Casino Integrated Resort to be built on Jeju Island by 2019. China State Construction Engineering Corp., China's largest builder, won the 700 billion won ($610 million) order, signaling the entry of Chinese builders into Korea.
Chinese builders are looking to establish a presence in Korea, particularly on the nation's southern resort island of Jeju where many Chinese investors and companies plan to build resorts and other leisure facilities.
On Tuesday, China State Construction Engineering Corp. (CSCEC) won a 700 billion won ($610 million) contract to build an integrated resort on Jeju, the first major construction deal won by a Chinese builder.
The news has alarmed Korean construction firms, which have been competing fiercely with their Chinese rivals in the Middle East and elsewhere. Domestic builders are concerned that they could lose a significant portion of the local construction market to Chinese firms which are armed with abundant liquidity and improved engineering and procurement capabilities.
Lotte Tour and China's Greenland Group signed the contract with CSCEC in which the latter builds the 38-story Dream Tower Casino Integrated Resort on a 303,000 square-meter site. Lotte Tour has a 59 percent stake in the project and Greenland Group, China's largest real estate developer, a 41 percent.
In March 2014, Lotte and Greenland had initially selected a consortium of Hanwha E&C and POSCO E&C as a preferred bidder. But the two builders backed out of the deal.
CSCEC, China's largest builder, is expected to begin work in May and complete the project by March 2019. When completed, the Dream Tower, which will have 1,600 hotel rooms, a foreigner-only casino and a shopping mall, will be the tallest building on the island.
"CSCEC's winning of the 700 billion won contract may not be an isolated incident. CSCEC and other Chinese builders could win more construction projects," said Kim Woon-joong, the head of business development division at the International Contractors Association of Korea. "Chinese companies will rush to come to Korea if they can make money here."
Kim said that the latest news has unnerved domestic builders who know how tough it is to compete with Chinese companies that receive full-scale support from the Chinese government.
"Korean builders have been facing increasingly stiffer competition from Chinese rivals in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere. They simply don't want to engage in competition in their home market," he said.
According to the Middle East Economic Digest, a business information provider on the Middle East and North Africa, Chinese builders won contracts worth $13.3 billion in the Middle East from January through February, while Korean firms secured deals valued at only $88 million.
"Korean firms are engaged in fierce competition with Chinese rivals in the global construction market. If they stick to their current business model, they won't be able to survive because Chinese firms have improved their engineering and procurement capabilities significantly over the years," said Kim.
"Chinese builders also easily obtain financing from state-run banks, while Korean firms struggle to find banks willing to extend credits to them. Korean builders should try to avoid competition with Chinese rivals. They need to invest more to enhance their project management technique and develop high value-added businesses," he said.
By Lee Hyo-sik
Korea has launched an aggressive campaign to bolster food exports to China, targeting the growing number of increasingly wealthy Chinese consumers, many of whom view Korean products as safer and more sanitary.
The agriculture ministry has successfully persuaded its Chinese counterpart to allow the sale of "samgyetang," or chicken soup with ginseng. Local makers will be able to ship their products to the world's second-largest economy as early as June.
The ministry has also signed a business agreement with Lotte Mart, which runs 75 stores on the mainland, and Chinese retailers to promote more Korean agricultural and food items.
The Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Lee Dong-Phil, returned home on Sunday after a three-day visit to China. Lee met his Chinese counterpart and other government officials to obtain China's certification for 11 local samgyetang plants.
The agriculture ministry expects Harim, Nonghyup and other samgyetang producers will be able to export their products in June. This year, samgyetang shipments to China are estimated to reach 500 tons, worth $3 million. The volume will likely more than double next year.
"We have long been waiting for the day when we can finally export samgyetang to China," Lee said. "In addition to the chicken soup, Korea must enhance the quality of other food products to bolster outbound shipments. The government will do everything it can to support farmers and food companies."
Korea has been asking China to import samgyetang since 2006. But the neighboring country had refused, citing its quarantine and sanitary rules.
The chicken soup will likely be a huge hit once it becomes available to Chinese consumers, given that it has been well received by Chinese visitors.
In addition to obtaining Chinese consent for samgyetang, the minister attended promotional events for Korean rice, kimchi and other food.
Lee took part in an event to mark the sale of Korean rice at retailer BHG Indigo in Beijing, as well as making kimchi with Chinese consumers at the K-Food Promotion Hall.
In Shanghai, the minister visited a Lotte Mart store, encouraging the retailer to promote Korean rice, kimchi, milk and other food products.
Lee also signed a business cooperation agreement with the head of City Super, a Hong Kong-based premium retailer that runs 13 stores on the mainland, to help boost the premium image of Korean agricultural and food items.
"The government will encourage more food companies to do business in China," the minister said. "We will offer comprehensive consulting services in marketing, customs, quarantine and logistics. We will open more warehouses in China to make it more convenient and less costly for food exporters to sell their products there. We will also organize a series of sales promotion activities in cooperation with private firms."
The ministry has set an ambitious goal of increasing Korea's agricultural and food exports to China by 32 percent, to $1.4 billion, this year from 2015.
Hyundai Motor's all-new Tucson sport utility vehicle
By Lee Hyo-sik
Hyundai Motor and affiliate Kia Motors will soon sell more cars in the United States than 17 European brands combined, industry analysts said Sunday.
The two Korean automakers have maintained their market shares on a series of newly launched models this year, while the popularity of European-brand vehicles has waned among U.S. consumers following last year's Volkswagen emission-cheating scandal.
According to industry data, Hyundai and Kia sold a combined 319,651 cars in the world's largest automobile market in the first quarter of this year, accounting for 7.8 percent of the market. Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and 14 other European brands sold a combined 344,117, capturing 8.4 percent of the U.S. market.
The market share gap between Hyundai-Kia and the 17 European brands narrowed to 0.6 of a percentage point in the first three months of the year from a 1.2 percentage point gap last year.
Hyundai sold 173,330 cars, up 0.8 percent from the same quarter last year, while U.S. consumers bought 146,321 Kia vehicles, up 3.7 percent. In particular, Hyundai's all-new Tucson sport utility vehicle (SUV) was the most popular model with 7,830 sold in March, up 85.5 percent from a year earlier.
Both Korean carmakers posted record-high sales in the first quarter.
In contrast, Volkswagen's sales declined 12.5 percent to 69,314 cars during the period. BMW and other European brands also saw their sales either stagnate or decrease. As a result, their combined U.S. market share fell to 8.4 percent from 9.2 percent in 2015.
"Hyundai and Kia have been performing well since the beginning of 2016 as they aggressively introduced a series of new sedans and SUVs," an automobile industry analyst said. "Throughout the year, both automakers plan to launch more new models, including Hyundai's first premium brand sedan, the G90, which will attract keen attention from U.S. motorists."
However, European brands have lost their luster among U.S. consumers after Volkswagen's emission-cheating fiasco, the analyst said.
"Many U.S. motorists lost faith in European brands, making it difficult for Europe-based automakers to pitch for their vehicles," he said. "If the current trend continues, Hyundai and Kia will soon be able to sell more cars than 17 European brands combined."
Meanwhile, Hyundai's Tucson SUV, and i10 and i30 compact cars were among the top 10 best-sellers in Germany.
According to the German Association of the Automotive Industry, Hyundai sold 2,116 all-new Tucson SUVs in Europe's largest automobile market in February, the third highest after Nissan's Qashqai SUV (2,345) and the Fiat 500 compact (2,214).
Hyundai also sold 1,526 i10s in Germany for fifth place, while its i30 came in ninth (1,470). The automaker's overall sales in Germany rose 11 percent to 7,279.
"The German market is mostly dominated by Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and other home-grown carmakers," a Hyundai Motor official said. "Given that, it's quite encouraging to see our cars have been well received by German motorists. We believe that Hyundai vehicles will perform better in other European markets."
KT's corporate business division executive vice president Lee Moon-hwan, right, poses with SAS Korea's country manager Sam Cho after signing a memorandum of understanding at the SAS Korea office in Seocho, southern Seoul, Friday.
/ Courtesy of KT
By Yoon Sung-won
KT, the nation's largest fixed-line operator, said Sunday it has signed an agreement with global data analysis provider SAS to cooperate in the cloud sector.
The telecom company said the cooperation will boost its presence in the cloud service market particularly, the public and business-to-business (B2B) sectors.
"We will provide world-class cloud infrastructure and services for our clients here to help them optimize their IT systems and increase business achievements by closely cooperating with SAS," KT's corporate business division executive vice president Lee Moon-hwan said in a statement. "We will also solidify ties with domestic cloud system and service providers to establish an ecosystem for mutual growth in the information and communication technology market here."
Under the memorandum of understanding which KT and SAS Korea has signed, the two companies will combine their cloud infrastructure and data analysis technology to provide the government organizations with an analysis platform to vitalize the use of their integrated cloud system dubbed "G-cloud." They will also collaborate in preparing a cloud-based business analysis platform service for corporate clients in the B2B sector.
"Under the agreement, we will be able to provide the SAS analysis systems to the public and B2B sectors here while lessening our clients burdens on early investment for hardware infrastructure," SAS Korea's country manager Sam Cho said. "Based on our strengthening analysis solutions and experiences, we will support our clients to seek for business insights from data on the cloud network."
KT, one of the leading providers of cloud infrastructure as a service here, has established a cloud data center in Los Angeles a first for a Korean company to expand its cloud service capacity.
SAS has provided analysis services designed for diverse use environments including private, public and hybrid cloud systems. In particular, the company has established partnerships with cloud global public cloud venders to provide services to its clients such as Chinese IT company Lenovo and Japanese cosmetics maker FANCL.
A visitor looks at an advertisement for Samsung Electronics Galaxy S7 at the company's promotion hall in Seocho, southern Seoul, Thursday. / Yonhap
By Yoon Sung-won
Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are stepping up competition between their latest flagship smartphones the Galaxy S7 and G5 through aggressive marketing in the United States.
The G5, LG's first modular smartphone, was launched globally on April 1. It has drawn a favorable market response, solidifying the company's presence in the U.S. market.
Unlike other markets, where LG has yielded the No.3 position to competitors like Huawei, the company has remained the third leading smartphone brand in the U.S.
But Samsung is out to regain customers' attention for its Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge with an aggressive "buy-one-get-one-free" marketing strategy in the U.S.
Verizon, the top U.S. mobile carrier, and Sprint T-Mobile have adopted the marketing strategy to attract customers for the S7 series, offering a S7 free to those who buy one. AT&T, the second-largest U.S. telecom firm, has offered a 48-inch Samsung Electronics television for those who buy an S7, on condition they subscribe to a satellite television service at the same time.
The move comes as the four U.S. mobile carriers push to boost sales of premium smartphones, which have fallen because budget handsets have become popular.
Unlike Korea, where most new handsets are sold through mobile carriers, more than half of handsets in the U.S. are distributed directly from manufacturers to customers through open markets. For this reason, U.S. mobile carriers tend to use tougher marketing to attract subscribers.
Meanwhile, the four U.S. carriers have chosen relatively less aggressive marketing for the G5.
Verizon and AT&T are giving an auxiliary battery pack and a power-charge dock to G5 customers. For those who buy LG's new smartwatch, "Watch Urbane Second Edition," and a G5, they offer a $100 discount for the handset.
Sprint also offers the battery pack and a $150 discount for G5 for subscribers who sign a two-year contract.
The relatively more aggressive promotion for the S7 series can be seen as Samsung's move to check G5's popularity in the U.S. market. This is because the U.S. carriers launched the promotions for the S7 series between late last month and early this month, more than two weeks after Samsung released the handsets.
An industry source said otherwise: "The U.S. mobile carriers are offering more generous benefits for the S7 series because these models draw more customers who will pay for monthly plans over a longer period."
Leaders urged to double efforts to build political links
By Kim Jae-kyoung
South Korean Ambassador to Singapore Suh Chung-ha
SINGAPORE Korea should establish more political links in Southeast Asia to solidify relationships and seize opportunities generated by the launch of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), according to a senior diplomat.
"Korea's diplomacy has placed too much emphasis on four great powers surrounding the Korean Peninsula the U.S., Japan, China and Russia," South Korean Ambassador to Singapore Suh Chung-ha said in a recent interview at the Korean Embassy in Singapore.
"It is the result of foreign policy seeking just immediate gains. The government needs to take more strategic, long-term approaches."
Foreign policy focusing on the four powers in his view prevents Korea from gaining a stronger foothold in the region, noting that Japan and China have been increasing their efforts to build relationships.
He said Korea has had significant growth in economic and cultural visibility in the 10-member bloc, on the rise of hallyu, or the Korean Wave, but it is hard to see any activity in political and academic circles.
"It is easy to recognize Korea's presence in business and cultural sectors in Southeast Asia," he said. "You can easily see global products manufactured by Samsung and Hyundai and hear people talking about Korean dramas and music.
"However, despite such improvement, I don't think ASEAN leaders get the feeling that Korea has as solid a relationship with them as Japan and China do. Korea is lacking in political links in the region."
The career diplomat said Korean leaders should pay more attention to the ASEAN market and show sincere commitment.
"President Park Geun-hye and her ministers should play a bigger role in improving Korea's relationships with ASEAN countries by making more frequent visits to those countries and expanding exchanges beyond business and culture," he said.
"Korean leaders should seriously think about why ASEAN people view Korea as not being interested in the region."
Suh stressed that Korea needs to understand the dynamics and complexity of ASEAN member countries.
"ASEAN countries do not want to have too much reliance on either China or Japan," he said. "Korea should understand this and take a strategic step to seize opportunities created by the launch of the AEC."
The leaders of 10 ASEAN member countries launched the AEC at the end of last year to ensure regional economic integration, offering opportunities in the form of a huge market of $2.6 trillion and over 622 million people, the world's third-largest.
"The AEC is quite different from the EU," he said. "Unlike the EU, the AEC is a loose integration of Southeast Asian countries and they take the launch as the process of integration. The move is more like a symbolic meaning of showing their concerted commitment to regional economic integration."
The AEC is a single market, with a free flow of goods, capital and skilled labor across borders in ASEAN, or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.
Win-win relationship
The ambassador made three recommendations for Korean companies to strengthen their foothold in the area.
The first thing he believes Korean players should do is establish a win-win relationship.
"Korean firms should not see ASEAN countries just as a cheap production base anymore, because the AEC will be one of the largest markets in the world in coming decades," he said.
"Not focusing only on maximizing profits, they need to show that they are seeking ways to prosper along with ASEAN countries by strengthening corporate social responsibility activities."
The second thing is to diversify exports.
"The population in the middle class in the region is expected to rise fast, in line with steady income growth," he said. "They should develop strategies and products tailored for ASEAN consumers."
Lastly, the companies should use Singapore as a bridgehead to make inroads into other countries in the region.
"Compared to other markets, Singapore is relatively small," he said. "However, since Singapore's certification system is highly credible among neighbors, entering Singapore will help them make forays into other markets more easily."
To improve transparency and predictability of state policies, Suh suggested the government make more efforts to reform public officials' thinking and regulations.
"Korea's systems and laws are already comparable to those of advanced countries like Singapore," he said. "What's lacking is people's attitude toward respecting the rule of law.
"Korea is also lagging behind in regulatory reform. Policymakers should understand that more regulations give more leeway for officials to abuse their powers and get involved in corruption."
According to Suh, deregulation is a must for Korea to attract more investment from abroad.
"To house multinational companies, Singapore has liberalized foreign investment control in all industrial sectors, except for defense and broadcasting," he said. "It also opened the financial market by removing rules regulating currency transactions and capital flow."
Another important factor that makes Singapore more attractive than other Asian countries is that the government's policies are highly predictable.
"Officials in Singapore have frequent meetings with foreign firms and keep them updated on regulations and laws," he said. "This increases predictability and attracts more investment from abroad."
Korean brokerage house moving to close hedge fund' firm
By Kim Jae-kyoung
SINGAPORE _ Hyundai Securities is facing a major setback in Singapore as speculation mounts that it is moving to close AQG (Able Quant Group) Capital Management, a hedge fund arm of Korea's fourth-largest securities firm, according to analysts.
They say Hyundai may pull out of Singapore due to poor performance amid the sluggish global financial markets, a huge blow to CEO Yoon Kung-eun, who has sought to find new growth prospects in the Southeast Asian country. But Hyundai Securities has rejected the speculation.
"I was told that Hyundai recently decided to close AQG Capital Management as a result of poor earnings and a gloomy market outlook," a Singapore-based investment banker said on condition of anonymity.
According to the banker, Kim Hong-shik, head of AQG, stepped down in January. Kim, a derivatives specialist who headed Asian equity-linked products for ABN AMRO, had served as head of the hedge fund since it debuted in July 2013.
"With his resignation, Hyundai has reduced the number of staff and virtually halted operation of the hedge fund," he said. "They sent back most of the fund to its head office. AQG staffers are now under the control of Hyundai Able Investment (HAI).
In July 2013, Yoon set up two corporate entities _ AQG and HAI _ in Singapore to expand the company's presence in Asia. Hyundai Securities Asia, its Hong Kong subsidiary, invested 100 percent in both firms.
AQG is a hedge fund management firm following an equities long/short market-neutral strategy, while HAI is a proprietary trading house that handles commodities and derivatives.
HAI chief Gene Orr has taken the helm of AQG. He is known as a trading expert who previously worked for the Korea First Bank, Cargill Investment, Citibank and Jefferies.
Hyundai's apparent move to close AQG has raised speculation that Hyundai will leave Singapore. When Yoon opened the Singapore operation in 2013, he had high hopes for it.
"AQG starts trading with $100 million but we aim to raise assets under management to $1 billion and have commission income of $40 million within three years," Yoon said in 2013.
Yoon bet on Singapore while closing other overseas operations _ corporate entities in London and Tokyo, and a representative office in Vietnam.
However, a spokesperson at Hyundai Securities in Seoul denied the claim, saying the company has no intention of closing AQG and leaving Singapore.
"It is a groundless rumor," he said. "It is true that the AQG head resigned in January and the firm has been put under the control of HAI. However, it is not a preliminary move to either close offices in Singapore or reduce operations. It is a process of business realignment.
"All I can say is that we do business as usual and will work harder to improve our performance. Since we are still enthusiastic about overseas business, it is nonsense to say that we will scrap operations in Singapore."
But he refused to share any details, or release financial data, of the two Singapore units.
Hyundai has five overseas operations _ Hyundai Securities America, Hyundai Securities Asia, Hyundai Securities Beijing Representative Office, AQG and HAI.
When contacted, HAI chief Orr refused to talk. Instead, an HAI official said: "AQG staff have been reduced and it is now headed by HAI chief Orr after Kim's resignation. Orr is not allowed to talk to media without authorization from our Seoul office."
Over the past few years, several Korean securities companies, including Mirae Asset Securities, KTB Investment and Securities and NH Investment Securities, have left Singapore because of poor earnings.
"It is very difficult for Korean securities firms to make profits in Singapore because they don't have networks and know-how," another source in Singapore said. "That's why many Korean securities firms gave up.
"AQG has suffered from anemic performance amid sluggish global stock markets and Hyundai has reduced the Singapore operations since late last year."
Hyundai Securities Asia, which has 100 percent of AQG and HAI, posted net losses of 700 million won in 2015 and 355 million won in 2014.
On March 31, KB Financial Group won a bid for a controlling stake in Hyundai Securities, owned by Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM), for more than 1 trillion won. HMM, a cash-strapped shipping affiliate of Hyundai Group, is selling the stake to pay part of its 4.3 trillion debt.
Song Joong-ki(left) and Song Hye-kyo from KBS's "Descendants of the Sun"
/ Courtesy of KBS
By Ko Dong-hwan
KBS TV's mega-hit drama "Descendants of the Sun" is gathering a following in one of the world's most secluded communist states North Korea.
Local daily newspaper Kyunghyang Shimmun, quoting a North Korean defector, said Friday the defector's family in the North had watched the drama's first eight episodes via the Internet.
The report said "some North Koreans had begun to get love-sick with the drama."
"More smartphones have been distributed to people and better Internet networks have been established compared to the past," the report said, quoting a North Korean expert.
The drama is set in the fictional war-torn country of Uruk. Its male lead, Song Joong-ki, who plays unrealistically perfect special unit chief Yoo Si-jin, falls in love with Kang Mo-yeon (Song Hye-kyo), a doctor from non-profit organization Doctors Without Borders.
The 14-part drama has caused frenzy among fans outside Korea. The drama's title was at one stage the most-searched keyword on China's No.1 SNS provider, Weibo. U.S.-based video-streaming website Viki has made the drama's subtitles available in 32 languages, including English, Chinese, Malaysian and Vietnamese. Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha has urged his citizens to watch the drama because it has "a sense of patriotism and sacrifice for one's country."
The drama's last episode airs on April 14.
By Lee Kyung-min
A coordinated effort by the governments and hospitals in Korea and China has successfully brought home Ha Sang-suk, a Korean victim of sexual slavery by the Japanese military.
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said Sunday that the government, along with a medical team from Chung-Ang University Hospital (CAUH), brought Ha for treatment for broken ribs she sustained after falling down a flight of stairs at her home in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in February. The transfer followed her wish to return to her native country before she dies.
She was moved from a local hospital to Wuhan Tianhe International Airport by ambulance. The Chinese authorities facilitated the transfer by allowing the hospital ambulance to enter the airport's parking ramp.
Korean Air replaced its flight between Wuhan to Incheon from the initial small B737 plane to a bigger A330, to help better accommodate her.
Engineers removed six seats in the plane so that Ha could remain on the stretcher as she was unable to sit up straight due to her injuries. The carrier also partitioned her stretcher from the rest of the seats for privacy, as well as providing seats to Ha's family.
Four staff members from CAUH accompanied her during the journey.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs provided Ha and her family with expedited immigration services at Incheon International Airport, enabling her to be transferred to hospital as soon as possible.
Upon arrival, she underwent a necessary checkup before receiving treatment.
The gender ministry provided 48 million won and private organizations gave 12 million won to cover her medical bills in China. The ministry will pay additional medical bills and nursing home fees here.
Born in 1927, Ha was forced to serve as a sex slave for Japanese soldiers from the age of 17. She could not return to Korea even after the nation was liberated from Japan, and earned a living working at a textile factory in China.
Lee Kyung-min
The government said Sunday that it will preserve records on human rights violations by the North Korean regime based on defectors' testimony.
A record center will be set up at the Ministry of Unification, and an archive will be established by the Ministry of Justice.
The records from the center, collected via interviews with North Korean defectors, will be transferred to the archive every three months.
This is a follow-up measure to the North Korean Human Rights Act, which was passed at the National Assembly in March and will take effect in September.
The measure aims not only to send a warning to the North's ruling class against poor human rights condition there, but also to hold them accountable in the future in the case of unification, a justice ministry official said.
"The fact that we are compiling material on the North Korean authorities' wrongdoings could effectively discourage their organized abuses of their people," he said.
"The collected data will also be used to punish those responsible for violations after unification, or to bring criminal charges to the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the North's leader Kim Jong-un and his Workers' Party officials even before unification."
North Korea sends political dissidents to concentration camps and treats them harshly through torture and even execution, according to a United Nations human rights investigator's report.
Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, co-chairman of the minor opposition People's Party, shakes hands with climbers at Mount Surak in Nowon, Seoul, Sunday, to appeal for support ahead of the April 13 general election. / Yonhap
Parties concentrate campaign efforts in and around Seoul
By Jun Ji-hye
Political parties pulled out all the stops while campaigning Sunday to try and win over voters in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province, where 122 out of 253 electoral seats are up for grabs in the April 13 general election.
Pollsters say that these regions have larger numbers of swing voters and that races in more than 15 constituencies are too close to call. Swing voters account for some 20 percent of the total electorate within the districts.
The leaders of the ruling Saenuri Party, the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) and the minor opposition People's Party visited these regions, appealing for votes for candidates from their respective parties.
The opposition parties emphasized that voters should judge the governing party and the President Park Geun-hye administration for "putting the nation's economy into a crisis." Meanwhile, the ruling party is arguing that the opposition parties dragged the economy down because they always disagreed with whatever the ruling party suggested.
Rep. Kim Moo-sung, chairman of the ruling Saenuri Party, gives a piggy back ride to the party's candidate Byun Whan-bong, while assisting on the latter's campaign at Sujeong in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.
Ruling party Chairman Rep. Kim Moo-sung made appearances at the campaigns of 11 candidates in his party that are standing in Gangdong, Songpa, Gangnam, Gwangjin, Dongdaemun and Seongdong.
MPK interim leader Kim Chong-in had an even tighter schedule, joining 18 candidates from his party in a one-day stumping at constituencies across Seoul and Gyeonggi Province.
Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, co-chairman of the People's Party, also visited Gwanak and Guro in Seoul to woo voters there. The other co-chairman of the minor opposition party, Chun Jung-bae, who has mostly carried out campaigning in Gwangju, a traditional home turf for liberal parties, came to the capital to support candidates running in the area.
The April 13 general election will decide who is to fill 253 directly elected and 47 proportional representation seats.
Kim Chong-in, interim chairman of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea, greets a merchant at a traditional market in Songpa, Seoul.
On Sunday, each party released forecasts of how many seats they expect to win. The ruling and main opposition parties were overly conservative about their predictions, while the minor opposition People's Party was fairly optimistic.
The Saenuri Party expected to win about 145 seats, falling short of securing the majority. The MPK cautioned that it might end up winning fewer than 100 seats, while the People's Party predicted it will grab as many as 35 seats.
According to analysis by four local pollsters, in the mean time, the ruling party is expected to secure 157 to 175 seats, the MPK 83 to 100 seats, and the People's Party 28 to 32 seats.
Compared to a previous analyses conducted on March 13, the number of seats predicted for the MPK dropped, while that for the People's Party increased. At the time, the MPK was expected to win 95 to 110 seats, and the People's Party 10 to 20.
"If the MPK succeeds in putting up single candidates with the People's Party in the capital area, it will be very helpful for the party," an official of the pollsters told reporters on the condition of anonymity. "Eighty percent of voters seem to have already decided on whom they will vote for, while 20 percent still remain as swing voters. The greatest variable will be a turnout of voters in their 20s, 30s and 60 or beyond."
Another official said, "The results in 10 to 15 constituencies in the capital area are changeable until the last minute."
The MPK has been engaged in an uphill battle outside the Seoul metropolitan area as well, according to the pollsters, as it was expected that the main opposition party would win only five to seven seats to the ruling party's 20 to 22 seats in the Chungcheong provinces, in which 27 seats are up for grab.
In the so-called Honam region that encompasses the MPK's traditional stronghold of North and South Jeolla Provinces and Gwangju, the party was forecast to secure 8 to 11 seats, fewer than the People's Party's 17 to 20 seats.
The worst scenario for the governing party would be if it loses some 15 seats in the Yeongnam area to candidates of the MPK or the minor opposition Justice Party, or independent runners, the pollsters added.
Yeongnam refers to South and North Gyeongsang provinces, the bastion of the conservative party.
Meanwhile, some 5.13 million, or 12.19 percent, out of 42.1 million eligible voters cast their ballots during an early voting conducted Friday and Saturday the highest turnout since the early voting system was introduced in 2013, according to the National Election Commission.
The turnout of early voting for the local elections in June 2014 was 11.49 percent.
Follow Jun Ji-hye on Twitter @TheKopJihye
By Kim Bo-eun
Over the past three years, Kim, 31, has been studying for the state exam to become a civil servant, one of the most coveted jobs sought by young jobseekers for its security.
However, passing the test became so hard as the competition ratio hovers about 40 to one.
"When I take the test and get disappointing results, I feel like giving up on everything," he said.
Hundreds of posts by people like Kim come up daily on the 250,000-member online community "dokgongsa," which stands for "people who doggedly prepare to become civil servants" in Korean.
The job is in demand not only by college students and graduates, who have trouble landing a decent position in the tough job market, but also among older people with work experience who are dissatisfied with their job or have been laid off.
"I am in my late 30s, have been married for five years and have two sons. I worked for over 11 years at a company, but I was laid off. I started up a business but it didn't go very well. I thought about what I could do, as I had technology skill certificate so I decided to study to take the civil service exam for a technical position," a man posted on a different online community.
Reflecting on the popularity, some 160,000 people took the written test for the entry level 9 civil servants across the country, Saturday, hoping to get one of the 4,120 positions available.
Some desperate test-takers even seek unfair means to land the job. Last month, a 26-year-old university student broke into a government building in Seoul several times, first to steal the paper for the civil servant test and later to alter his test score. When he was taken to a detention center after a local court issued an arrest warrant, he told reporters, "I'm sorry, I wanted to become a civil servant."
There are many reasons for the high popularity.
The first is job security. While employees at private companies start to retire in their 40s, civil servants are able to work until the age of 60. The pension for public workers also gives more benefits than private-sector ones.
For starting level civil servants, yearly pay ranges from 26 million to 27 million won, when including extra payments for meals and welfare. This may look small, as a survey by the Korea Employers Federation on 414 companies last year showed the average income for entry level employees who graduated from a four-year university, was around 35 million won.
However, the number of jobs at the companies was very small compared to the huge number of jobseekers. A different survey on small-and medium-sized companies with less than 300 employees, showed a starting level salary for non-regular workers was 22 million won.
For female workers, guaranteed maternity leave and a flexible work system are also attractive factors. The percentage of female applicant for the level 9 civil servant examination this year was the highest at 53.6 percent.
"Considering the pay, pension, early retirement and stress at private companies, a civil service job is much better," Kim said.
By Rachel Lee
A group of 13 North Koreans who defected after working in a Pyongyang-owned restaurant in China arrived in South Korea via a third country, sources here said Sunday.
The North Koreans reportedly traveled to the third country by bus with assistance from South Korean diplomats in China and then caught a flight to Seoul.
If confirmed, it would indicate that China may have allowed the South Korean diplomats to take them to the third country although the authorities knew about the defectors. It is not known whether China discussed the issue with North Korea.
The defections could put China-North Korea relations on the line, analysts here say.
The workers one manager and 12 waitresses who arrived in Seoul Thursday worked at a restaurant in Ningbo, northeast Zhejiang province, a source said.
"The North Korean employees escaped the restaurant in China and moved to South Korea through a South Asian country," the source said on condition of anonymity.
The employees were found to have worked at a restaurant in Yanji in eastern Jilin province, but moved to Ningbo last December due to "financial difficulties," sources said.
The North Korean workers left Ningbo en masse on April 5.
Observers say that China appears to be cooperating with South Korea and the international community on North Korea sanctions because the Chinese government allowed the North Koreans to make a detour via a third country to enter the South. The U.N. Security Council adopted the Resolution 2270 last month in response to Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 and a subsequent long-range rocket launch using ballistic missile technology, Feb. 7.
China had previously treated North Koreans apprehended in its territory as illegal migrants and deported them back to the North.
"China didn't seem so willing to cooperate, but now they're starting to get involved with the North Korea sanctions," said Song Dae-sung, former Sejong Institute president.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's tyrannical regime could accelerate a rift within the middle-class people in the repressive state in the future, said another government source.
It is not yet known whether China let North Korea about the move.
Since the unprecedented mass defection last week, North Korean restaurants in other nations are being closely monitored.
"It feels tense. The [crackdown] has become much tougher. Guest houses as well as restaurants are surrounded by police," said one North Korean merchant.
There are an estimated 130 Pyongyang-owned restaurants in 12 countries, including former communist nations such as China, Russia, Cambodia and the Netherlands.
The restaurants key sources of hard currency are believed to be under heavy pressure to send money to Pyongyang.
The Kim Jong-un regime has been forcing waitresses employed at state-owned restaurants overseas to secretly gather information on South Korea from their customers.
Restaurant employees are chosen partly for their loyalty to the regime. They usually work as waitresses but also sing, play instruments and dance to entertain guests.
About 29,000 people have entered the South including 1,276 last year.
South Korea urged its citizens to refrain from dining at Pyongyang-owned restaurants in line with the U.N. Security Council's latest resolution aimed at cutting the flow of hard currency into the Kim Jong-un regime and prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.
Indian Ambassador to Korea Vikram Doraiswami, sitting second left, holds a press conference for the "Maritime India Summit," which is scheduled for April 14-16 at the Bombay Convention and Exhibition Centre in Mumbai City, at the Millennium Seoul Hilton on Apil 7. Dilip Sundaram, chairman of the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICCK), Parth Sharma, ICCK vice chairman and Cho Shin-hee, director general of the overseas fisheries and international policy bureau at Korea's Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, attended the press conference. / Courtesy of the Embassy of India
By Rachel Lee
India's huge maritime sector potential will provide new opportunities for Korea, an Indian envoy says.
Indian Ambassador to Korea Vikram Doraiswami said at a press conference before the "Maritime India Summit" that India is looking for a long-term partnership with Korea in the sector to drive economic growth.
The summit is scheduled for April 14-16 at the Bombay Convention and Exhibition Centre in Mumbai City.
"The focus of the event is on India's maritime economy, comprising shipbuilding, port development, inland waterway development, aquaculture and marine leisure," the ambassador said at the Millennium Seoul Hilton on Apil 7.
With Korea as the sole partner country, the meeting aims to "complement India's efforts to develop its maritime sector and attract global investment as part of the Make in India' initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi," according to the Indian embassy in Seoul.
Dilip Sundaram, chairman of the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICCK), Parth Sharma, ICCK vice chairman and Cho Shin-hee, director general of the overseas fisheries and international policy bureau at Korea's ministry of oceans and fisheries, attended the press conference.
"Korea is one of the world's leading countries in maritime-related technologies, accounting for more than 30 percent of the global shipbuilding market," Sharma said. "It is also an important logistics hub with the world's fourth-largest container throughput."
A Korean delegation of 200 experts is planning to hold a special session to share the country's technology in the maritime field. There will also be a Korean food festival during the summit.
The vice chairman said the event is essential to India, since the country sees its role in global trade increasing and is poised to take full advantage of lower logistics costs.
"So we aim to create an awareness of the untapped potential of the sector, as well engage all stakeholders in the road map for coastal and waterways development through this summit," the ICCK vice chairman said.
On the first day, thematic sessions covering topics including India's Sagarmala project and shipbuilding and ship repair will be held, along with Korea's special session and the CEO's closed-door talks, organizers said.
On the second day, the forum will deal with inland water transportation and coastal shipping, hinterland connectivity and multi-modal logistics. There also will be a seminar on maritime security.
Under Sagarmala, designed to link ports and promote industrialization, over 150 projects are under way, the vice chairman said.
The project aims to achieve "port modernization, stronger connectivity, port-led industrialization and coastal community development," he said.
He said investors, especially from Korea, are expected find opportunities in many projects through the event including greenfield ports, new berths in major ports, roads, railways, pipelines, multi-modal logistic hubs and pork-linked clusters.
India is one of the world's fastest-growing economies, with gross domestic product growth of 7.5 percent in 2015-16.
According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the nation was the fourth most attractive destination for foreign direct investment. It has a coastline of 7,517 kilometers and navigable inland waterways of 14,500 kilometers.
Australian Ambassador to Korea Bill Paterson, left, attends the "Australian Craft Beer Masterclass" at the
JW Marriott Seoul Hotel on April 7. / Yonhap
By Rachel Lee
Australia has introduced its unique craft beers to Korea.
At the "Australian Craft Beer Masterclass" at the JW Marriott Seoul Hotel on April 7, representatives from Australian craft beer producers Australian Beer Co. and Moo Brew showcased beers from three major breweries Australian Beer Co., Moo Brew and Coopers Brewery.
More than 50 local beer importers and media attended the event organized by the Australian Trade Commission.
"Australia is well positioned to introduce our high-quality craft beer to Korean consumers to cater for increasing demand for a diverse range of quality beer" said Australian Ambassador to Korea Bill Paterson.
Paterson highlighted Australia's flourishing craft beer market that has more than 300 breweries and 1,000 beers available.
Products on show were Australian Beer Co.'s Yenda Hell Lager and Yenda India Pale Ale; Moo Brew's Moo Brew Pilsner and Moo Brew Pale Ale; and Coopers Brewery's 2015 Vintage Ale and Best Extra Stout.
"Australia is home to some of the most innovative craft brewers in the world who use high-quality ingredients to deliver a purity of taste that is second to none," Australian Trade Commission Senior Trade Commissioner Brett Cooper said. "I think today's event was an excellent example of what Australia can offer Korean beer consumers."
According to the Australian Trade Commission, Australia accounts for 30 percent of the world's malting-barley trade.
Under the Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement, which came into force on Dec. 12, 2014, the tariff on Australian beers was reduced to 17.1 percent this year and will be eliminated in 2020.
Central American Bank for Economic Integration Executive President Nick Rischbieth, right, meets with
Kim Yoon-kyung, deputy director general at Korea's Ministry of Strategy and Finance, during his visit to
Korea. / Courtesy of the Embassy of Honduras
By Rachel Lee
The Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) is eager for Korea to become a member, which would bring extensive economic benefits, the institution's head believes.
CABEI Executive President Nick Rischbieth visited Korea earlier this month with a delegation from the economic ministries of Central American countries as part of negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement between Korea and that region.
"Incorporation of Korea to the CABEI is not a recent issue," the president told The Korea Times. "Negotiations began in 1996, when former Korean President Kim Young-sam, during a Korea- Central America summit with Central American presidents, expressed Korea's interest in becoming a member of the CABEI."
Rischbieth began his second five-year term as executive president in December 2013. He previously worked as the bank's executive vice president and chief financial officer, and treasurer.
"I believe the FTA is the ideal situation in which we finally achieve the membership of Korea in the CABEI, which can bring about great benefits to both parties," he said.
The CABEI, founded in 1960, is an international body whose objective is to promote the integration and development of its founding-member countries: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. It is headquartered in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and has offices in each country.
Rischbieth said both parties will benefit from Korea becoming a non-regional member. In particular, Korean companies will bring knowledge and training, technological transfers, investment in infrastructure and fresh capital.
"A trade relationship with Korea is expected to benefit Central American producers, with higher exports of coffee, tropical fruits and metals, as well as give access to products in the automotive, cell phone, health-care, construction and food sectors," the president said.
"The CABEI is an ideal platform for Korea to promote its export offering through credit lines with Eximbank and by participating in tender projects financed by CABEI. As a CABEI member country, Korea would have a preferential margin in these projects."
The CABEI and Korea Eximbank signed a $100 million framework agreement last month to develop credit facilities for trade between Korea and Central America.
"The incorporation to CABEI would be an opportunity for Korea to play a leading role in Central America through its global economic status, as opposed to just being another actor in the international context and in other regions," he said.
By Rachel Lee
Korean food experts have visited Myanmar to share their experiences with local businesspeople.
The "Product Development Workshop," organized by the ASEAN-Korea Centre and Myanmar's Ministry of Commerce on April 5, was designed to enhance the nation's food product development capacity, with an eye to gaining access to the Korean market.
ASEAN-Korea Centre Secretary General Kim Young-Sun said Myanmar is in the heart of the world's fastest-growing region, including China and India, and also has "abundant resources and limitless potential."
"Myanmar's first democratically elected government in 30 years just took off recently, which has opened up even broader possibilities for the country," he said.
The Korean experts gave lectures under the topics "Sourcing Trends and Procedures" and "Trends of Food Packaging Technology in Korea." Local participants made presentations on an "Overview of Myanmar Food Market and Distribution," designed to help the Korean buyers better understand Myanmar's market environment.
The workshop also had one-on-one meetings and the delegation visited local manufacturers to offer some practical help, the organization said.
On April 8, the ASEAN-Korea Centre held a similar event in Manila, in collaboration with the Philippine Export Marketing Bureau (EMB).
Korean experts gave lectures on topics including "Trends of Gourmet Food in Korea," while representatives from the EMB made a presentation on an "Overview of the Philippines Food Market and Distribution."
"Through my visit to Madrid Fusion Manila, I felt that the Philippines stands out as Asia's most vibrant food business destination," Lee Dong-go, ASEAN-Korea Centre deputy director, said. "I wish that this workshop will serve as a stepping stone for Philippine manufacturers who have global competitiveness to further expand their businesses to the Korean market."
Madrid Fusion Manila is the first and only Asian edition of the culinary event Madrid Fusion, where delegates gained up-to-date information on world food industry trends and built a network with international partners.
The ASEAN-Korea Centre is an intergovernmental organization established in 2009 with an aim to promote exchanges among Korea and the ten ASEAN Member States.
Korea-Netherlands ties: Dutch Ambassador to Korea Lody Embrechts, right, poses with Suncheon Mayor Cho Chung-hoon at the Suncheon Bay National Garden in South Jeolla Province on April 8. / Yonhap
Norway's PM to visit Korea
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg will visit Korea on April 14-16, the Norwegian Embassy said.
This is her first visit since her inauguration in 2013.
According to the embassy, Solberg plans to meet Korean President Park Geun-hye to discuss "bilateral and global issues to deepen the cooperation between the two countries."
She will also speak at a National Assembly's forum on the importance of achieving sustainable development goals through politics, partnerships and people's participation.
The embassy said the prime minister will visit Gyeongbok Palace to learn about the history of the Joseon Dynasty and the National War Memorial of Korea, where she will lay a wreath at the Norwegian Monument to commemorate Norway's participation in the Korean War.
Around 10 North Korean workers dispatched to Angola have died of yellow fever in the southern African country, a U.S. radio outlet said Friday.
About 450 people have been confirmed to be infected with the viral disease in Angola since the first case was reported in December in the country's capital, the Washington-based Radio Free Asia (RFA) report said.
Among those that caught yellow fever, 178 have died so far, with the disease spreading rapidly in nearby countries, the RFA said, quoting sources.
It said some 1,000 North Korean workers are in Angola, including construction workers and medical staff, the report said, referring to the workforce North Korea dispatches overseas to earn money.
The recent deaths of the North Koreans calls into question the quality of North Korea's yellow fever vaccine and the veracity of North Korea's claims to have inoculated its workers sent to the African country, according to the report.
Those who became sick have asked to be repatriated, but the North Korean government has opted to not comply out of fear that they could cause the disease to spread at home, the media company said.
In a separate story, the RFA also said China's customs authorities have recently tightened their control of cargo at its borders with North Korea.
Customs officials increased the frequency of their random inspections on cargo shipments to see if the claimed items match actual products being transported, the report said.
The tightening is especially aimed at stopping packages labeled as apples but actually containing Chinese rice from being exported to North Korea, the report said.
China's customs office has also required North Korea to win prior approval before shipping Chinese chemicals to the North, which could be used for the production of narcotics, the RFA said. (Yonhap)
By Stephen Costello
The discussion of Chinese interests regarding their North Korean neighbor, conflicted as they are, has often omitted some important considerations. Chinese officials and academics have often disagreed with each other and among themselves, so confusion is not surprising. Interests should also be distinguished from shorter-term tactical statements and actions, which are what most observers follow. Such interests should be a better guide to real policies and actions than the latest public statements or ungrounded assumptions.
Chinese leaders generally supported the negotiated denuclearization of North Korea carried out in the 1990s. That's both logical and unsurprising in the context of the times. In this sense the US-North Korea Agreed Framework of 1994, and South Korea's subsequent North-South engagement initiatives of 1998-2007 had Chinese backing. In contrast, the preference for pressure over diplomacy since 2001 by the US and since 2008 by South Korea were opposed.
Many observers have noted that Premier Xi Jinping is bolder and more ambitious than his predecessors, butfew have described any real change in Chinese interests on the Korean Peninsula. Even assuming expandedChinese cooperation with UNSC Resolution 2270, which expanded sanctions on North Korean trade last month, they still support a negotiated path, and appreciate the DPRK's insistence that the US must be the main guarantor of any strategic/political deals that could lead to access to international financial participation.
Chinese Pivot
Now, in the aftermath of a new nuclear test and a new rocket launch in the DPRK, Chinese leaders are likely to pivot from their unusual level of support for new UN sanctions to a newly intensified demand that the US overcome its objections to dialogue with the North and come to the negotiating table. In this way, they would attempt to return the US position to its earlier, 1990s basis. At that time, the US position was also denuclearization, but in the context of the North's economic development and security, in a credible, public and politically durable way.
And here we get to a key stumbling block. There is and has been no indication that the US administration would or could return to credible talks with the DPRK, particularly during its final eight months. Such talks credible, rather than political stunts would require a degree of strategic planning, of staffing and of public diplomacy that is very hard to expect from the Obama team.
History
The US administration's view of American interests changed drastically in 2001. Part of the new approach was a recalibration of US-China diplomacy. China, South Korea and Japan had all resisted the Bush team's withdrawal of support for the Agreed Framework and the KEDO project implementing it, but to no avail. As a gesture to China, and perhaps as a way to shift responsibility and blame, China was offered the chairmanship of the new Six Party Talks (6PT) in 2003.
The prospect of chairing the new group must have been enticing, since it would give Beijing an international role on a matter of both international and regional significance, and presumably more power to force a deal. But as with so many others, the Chinese seem to have greatly misunderestimated the Bush team's intentions, as the former President might say. And the tension between its role as convener of the 6PT and its interest in having North Korea make deals directly with the US seems still unresolved.
Judging by what we know now, the 6PT was not intended to produce an agreement with North Korea. At least not one that the DPRK would sign. In fact, its impact was to create a bottleneck to prevent deals with North Korea that did not involve elements the North would never agree to, and that the US administration insisted on. Among these elements was the famous "CVID" requirement: complete, verifiable, irreversible, dismantlement. Among Washington policy wonks, we used to laugh at the innocence, the impracticality of CVID. Its promoters must have known that "irreversibility" is a political and strategic construct, not a classically legalistic US principle. But as Vice President Cheney was said to have advised, "We don't negotiate with evil. We defeat it."
Let's recall that the 6PT had replaced a working and successful multilateral process, part of which included the Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG) , established in April 1999, which recognized common strategic interests among Japan, South Korea and the US. However, the TCOG was allowed to atrophy, along with the Agreed Framework and KEDO.
This turn away from a process co-led by South Korea at the time, and supported by Japan, China and Russia that realistically connected DPRK denuclearization and missile reduction with meaningful development and security, is the diplomatic history that today's officials and planners must come to terms with. It is the history that the US administration and too many journalists carefully ignores when imagining the view from China or North Korea. Their officials, of course, remember it clearly.
If China uses its new cooperation with UN sanctions to forcefully require the US to come back to negotiations with North Korea, the Obama administration could face pressures in coming months that it is not prepared for. Both Stephan Haggard of UC San Diego and Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association have recently suggested that this linkage should be expected.
If the US administration continues to hope that either the Chinese will help to squeeze the North Korean economy without an American recommitment to negotiations, or that it can continue to blame China while it refuses to use its own considerable leverage to address the North Korea issue, it is likely to be disappointed. In either event, sanctions would be relaxed, China and North Korea would resume blaming the US, and we would be back to square one. Unfortunately, this is the most likely outcome.
Stephen Costello is a producer of AsiaEast, a web and broadcast-based policy roundtable focused on security, development and politicsin Northeast Asia. He writes from Washington, D.C. He can be reached at scost55@gmail.com.
By Justin Fendos
For those of you who have not noticed, Vietnam is suffering the worst drought in its recorded history. Last year, spring rainfall in the Dak Lak province was already 86% less than in 2014, devastating the two main agricultural exports: rice and coffee. This year, the drought is even worse. Where once stood lush, wet paddies now lie the cracked, caked earth, more reminiscent of sub-Saharan Africa than the jungle terrain we are accustomed to seeing.
Meteorologically speaking, Vietnam receives water in two main ways: through direct rainfall and river water carried down from China. The lack of rainfall has been the main culprit thus far but so has the lack of river water. Usually March is when melting snow in the mountains to the north and spring rain fuel swelling rivers like the Mekong. But this year, there has been hardly any change in the river's height.
The lack of river water has a particularly detrimental effect on rice farms grown in the river delta, usually the most prolific place for rice paddies. When the river current is strong, salt water from the ocean tends not to seep into the soil. But when the river is weak, the soil saturates with brine, weakening or killing off rice and other crops. To make matters worse, desperate farmers have been pumping water from the ground, adding even more salt to the mix.
Large rivers like the Mekong originate in China and have a number of dams along their length. At the moment, there are six major dams on the Chinese side of the river and over twenty dams of various sizes on the Vietnamese tributaries feeding into the Mekong. Recognizing the activities of these dams does reduce the amount of water downstream, China has been quick to release more water but so far even this has been insufficient to curtail the issue. Despite the tiresome outcry that China is holding Vietnam hostage with water, it is important to keep a level head and recognize the true culprit at hand: climate change.
Every year, it seems a new disaster is added to the long, running list of problems caused by climate change. My favorite is the time of cherry blossom blooming. Cherry trees are actually excellent thermometers because the blooming of their flowers requires a precise temperature range. The Japanese have compiled a wonderfully meticulous annual account of the blooming for about a thousand years, effectively giving us an extensive record of spring temperature even before the thermometer was invented. When one examines this record for the city of Kyoto, it is obvious the time of blooming remained virtually unchanged until the mid 1800s: during this period, blooming usually occurred in mid April. Starting in the mid-1880s, however, blooming started to occur earlier and earlier, both for cherry trees inside the city (warmed by urban activity) and without (not warmed). Today, cherry trees in the hills outside of Kyoto bloom an average of 13 days earlier than they did in the 1700s.
Another example I like involves something a little less obvious. In the US state of Montana, millions of acres of pine forest are being destroyed every year by a beetle. Sound like it has nothing to do with climate change? You would be wrong. It turns out the beetle is one very sensitive to temperature. During winters, the beetle normally succumbs to the cold and remains dormant. But with warmer winter temperatures every year, the beetle has remained active and multiplied uncontrollably. In 2015, it is estimated the beetle systematically killed 100,000 trees a day.
The bottom line: climate change is a serious issue. It's not just about the average temperature going up a degree or two. It's about massive changes in the environment around us. I hope you think on these things when enjoying the cherry blossoms this week.
The writer is a Ph.D. from Yale and a professor at Dongseo University in Busan. He is also the associate director of the Tan School of Genetics at Fudan University, Shanghai. Write to jfendos@aya.yale.edu.
Foreign, immigration debates sorely missing in campaigning
Even before voters cast their ballots in the April 13 parliamentary general election, two losers have already been decided. Neither includes voters, who, with a sense of cynicism, are bound to lose irrespective of whoever wins or President Park Geun-hye as a lame duck president.
Rather, the two are key issues that can influence the future of the nation: immigration and foreign policy issues. Neither the ruling Saenuri Party or the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) have paid much attention to these issues, with few candidates focusing their campaign on them.
The Saenuri Party decided not to designate an immigrant candidate for this election. In the outgoing 19th term of the National Assembly, the ruling party designated Jasmine Lee, a Filipina immigrant, as a non-elected lawmaker under the proportional representation system. Lee devoted herself as a representative of the growing immigrant communities to pertinent legislative initiatives.
Although how successful she has been is an open question, the symbolism she carried was one that fit Korea's changing cultural dynamism that is becoming increasingly multiracial. Currently, the population of foreign residents has passed the 1 million mark with interracial marriages becoming such a common affair that the children from such marital unions are hard to miss in classrooms.
Already, Korea is riding on a stiff aging curve on the path toward thinning the ranks of the working-age, young population that can only be replaced by embracing immigrants. The lack of a representative in the National Assembly who can stand for them is a mistake by the ruling party, and won't help in the nation's transition to a diverse society.
The second loser is foreign policy. Debates about this have been hard to find at the party level or among candidates. Even more surprising is that North Korea, which has recently been raising tensions by threatening to turn Cheong Wa Dae into a sea of fire and do physical harm to President Park Geun-hye in the aftermath of ever-tougher U.N. sanctions for the North's nuclear and long-range missile tests in the space of one month this year, is glaringly absent.
On a large scale, Seoul has been caught between China and the United States over whether to deploy the U.S.-made missile interceptor or Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system on its soil despite Beijing's strong opposition. Among related issues are the future of the Seoul-Beijing relationship after the North Korea issue is settled; the future ROK-U.S. alliance; and Japan's remilitarization challenge. The failure to make a campaign issue out of these is also a mistake by the parties.
Parties have focused their campaigns on economic issues such as quantitative easing, or an easy money policy, and bread-and-butter issues such as minimum wages; and they have failed to provide discernible policy differences that only increase voter confusion and apathy.
The policy mish-mash is also "personalizing" the election that encourages the voters to cast their ballot for candidates who share hometowns with them or are tied by alma maters.
It is true that the parliamentary elections are not like presidential elections as the first are more focused on domestic issues than the second. By sticking to the past pattern, concern is rising that they won't be any better than their predecessors in the outgoing term of the National Assembly, which has been criticized for doing the worst job in the parliament's history. A total of 253 elected Assemblymen, together with 47 proportionally selected, will represent their constituencies and parties not only to deal with issues that are related to domestic politics but also regarding national issues.
Therefore, it is natural that they should disclose their views on these big issues so voters may pass their judgment on them as well. Now it looks too late for that and the nation will likely pay for the lawmakers' unproven qualities.
France is helping the European Union (EU) adopt new sanctions against North Korea to punish the regime for its defiant nuclear and missile tests as Pyongyang shows no intention of giving up its weapons programs through talks, a senior French diplomat said.
Emmanuel Lenain, director-general of the French foreign ministry's directorate for Asia and Oceania, said in an interview with the Joint Press Corps that although France believes the North Korean nuclear issue should ultimately be resolved through dialogue, now is the time to put further pressure on Pyongyang.
"It's a very difficult time because North Korea is not taking steps conducive to reconciliation," he said at his office in Paris, Wednesday. "As long as Pyongyang doesn't make peace overtures, it's absurd and useless to have talks."
France is one of the five permanent veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, which last month slapped the toughest sanctions to date on Pyongyang in response to its nuclear test on Jan. 6 and long-range rocket launch on Feb. 7. The sanctions include the mandatory inspection of all cargo going in and out of the North and a ban on the country's exports of iron, coal and other mineral resources that serve as a key source of hard currency for the regime.
The EU has imposed sanctions on North Korea both within and outside the framework of the Security Council resolution. Last week, it blacklisted Korea National Insurance Corporation, North Korea's state-run insurance company, citing its suspected involvement in raising funds for the country's nuclear, missile and other weapons of mass destruction programs.
"The aim of the sanctions is to force Pyongyang to make rational decisions and we hope they'll lead to talks," Lenain said. "In addition to the EU sanctions, France is preparing a set of strong sanctions."
The standalone measures will be in line with the Security Council resolution and could expand the list of people under a travel ban or strengthen economic and financial sanctions.
France is one of two EU countries that have no diplomatic relations with North Korea. The other country is Estonia.
Lenain warned that should Pyongyang carry out another provocation, the international community will respond to it, such as by increasing pressure on the regime to improve its human rights record.
The official also rejected Pyongyang's calls for peace treaty talks, saying the North should first take steps toward denuclearization.
North Korea has recently called for talks on a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War. The conflict ended in an armistice, leaving the Koreas technically still at war. South Korea has dismissed the overture as a ploy to divert attention away from the North's nuclear conundrum.
On this year's celebrations marking the 130th anniversary of South Korea-France diplomatic ties, Lenain said his country is very proud and happy about the dozens of cultural events to take place in Korea throughout the year.
He also expressed hope for greater exchanges between the sides, saying the two countries are well placed to cooperate in creative and innovative areas.
Asked to give advice on ways to overcome the historical rows among South Korea, Japan and China, Lenain stressed that the solution can only be found among the countries concerned.
Europe achieved post-war reconciliation when those responsible acknowledged their wrongdoing and France accepted the apology with a view toward the future, he said.
"It required a lot of courage and the leaders of the two countries had to make significant decisions," he said. (Yonhap)
Ayam-haseyo Min-Ho Oppa! It's all about ayam (chicken) fest in the heart of Kuala Lumpur on the evening of Mar. 25, 2016 as the city welcomed the global ambassador of the famous Korean chicken franchise Kyochon, the Hallyu wave drama heartthrob, Lee Min Ho.
Despite the raining during this mini Meet & Greet session, the enthusiastic fans who have waited all morning continued to passionately wait as they did not want to miss their chances to meet the dashing Lee Min Ho.
As the clock struck sharp at 6 p.m., the actor walked to the stage in the middle of the Pavilion Mall entrance to grace the launching of the new Kyochon franchise. As expected from a Korean hearththrob, his appearance was simultaneously welcomed with a thunderous roar from fans.
When asked about the uniqueness of Kyochon chicken, Lee Min Ho sincerely stated that Kyochon chicken indeed healthy, natural and 'sedap' (tasty). He loved fried chicken and he confessed that he was indeed a fan of Kyochon since he was a boy. He also shared with the crowds his secret to enjoy Kyochon - Lee Min Ho style: to mix his favourite flavour, honey-flavoured series with Kimchi Fried Rice. Even to imagine this scrumptious meal will make us drool over. I would recommended the readers should try too.
He also thanked Kyochon for giving the opportunities to be able to be closer to his fans especially outside South Korea through the mini gathering event like this. Despite this was not his first visit to Kuala Lumpur, he enjoyed coming here as the warm welcomed and friendly gestures from Malaysian fans truly touched his heart. He promised the fans to visit this country again and the fans too promised him to continue to support and love Kyochon.
The highlight of the evening was the photo session and meet-and-greet for the lucky winners of the contest held by Kyochon Malaysia. All winners walked home with autographed calendars single-handedly given by Lee Min Ho himself. It was then succeeded by a table-signing ceremony and the autographed table by Lee Min Ho will be displayed at the newly opened Kyochon outlet in Pavilion Kuala Lumpur.
From a fan boy of Kyochon to Kyochon's ambassador, it was a tasteful (fried chicken) journey for Lee Min Ho. As one said 'Part of the secret success in life is to eat what you like' and the Kyochon chicken will taste even better when his fans can be able to enjoy and love it as much as he do.
KpopStarz would like to thank Kyochon Malaysia for the event coverage opportunity.
Article by Amalina A Photo credit: Kyochon Malaysia
The SLFP does not condone the continuation of the Emergency Regulations (The Public Security Ordinance) more than a day necessary
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Airline critics believe that a new policy that raises the fares for passengers who book multi-stop trips is evidence of collusion between the nations biggest carriers.
Whether airlines are conspiring in violation of federal laws or not, the change means airline travelers must pay two to three times as much for a single ticket with several stops than they would for multiple one-way tickets.
The Business Travel Coalition and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) have asked federal agencies to investigate Delta, United and American airlines over the pricing policies. The American Society of Travel Agents said they detected the changes in the last few weeks.
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The U.S. Justice Department had already confirmed last summer that it is investigating whether some of the nations airlines have conspired to keep fares high while limiting new routes and added seats.
It seems to me that the nations big airlines are working in concert to deceive and cheat the flying public, said Menendez, the ranking member of the Senate Banking subcommittee on housing, transportation and community development.
Menendez said that a flight from Newark to Los Angeles, with a side trip to San Francisco and then back to Newark costs, $592 if a traveler buys three separate one-way tickets. But the three airlines have changed their booking policies to force travelers to buy the flights together, at a price of $1,311 for that three-city example, the senator said.
American Airlines spokesman Josh Freed said the carrier simply closed a loophole that previously let passengers string together several one-way tickets in a way that was not intended by the airlines.
Part of the reason airlines want fliers to book multi-stop flights on the same ticket is so they can help passengers make their connections if there are flight delays caused by bad weather or mechanical problems, he said.
In a statement, United Airlines echoed Freeds explanation. Delta Air Lines declined to comment.
Both American and United denied that the changes were made in concert with rival carriers.
To read more about travel, tourism and the airline industry, follow me on Twitter at @hugomartin.
It should come as no surprise that our species, increasingly cut off from the natural world, has become extraordinarily adept at tuning out the havoc its wreaking on the planet through climate change.
Humans, like most animals, are preoccupied with satisfying immediate needs. This is understandable, though an insufficient excuse for inaction given our culpability and capacity to adapt and change.
Phantom Limb Company, a marvelously inventive New York troupe that has a magicians touch with marionettes, is part of a growing artistic movement to heighten environmental awareness through the arts. The companys latest project, Memory Rings, presented by UCLAs Center for the Art of Performance at Freud Playhouse this weekend, offered a multimedia fantasia on ecological themes.
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A work of movement-theater, lyrically directed and designed by Jessica Grindstaff, the production enlisted a forest of woodland creatures in a collage of fables, fairly tales and epics depicting fraught encounters between humans and nature.
The second installment in a planned trilogy of works addressing the environment (the first, 69S, centered on Ernest Shackletons 1914 Antarctica expedition), Memory Rings was inspired by the Methuselah tree, a nearly 5,000-year-old California bristlecone pine that was once thought to be the oldest living tree.
This breathtaking longevity prompted Phantom Limbs meditation on how our relationship to the natural world has changed over the millennia. The result is a kaleidoscopic review of the deforestation in Gilgamesh, the big bad wolfs fate in Little Red Riding Hood story and the workaday routine of the Seven Dwarfs kited out like miners, with brief comic forays into our Google-crazed contemporary moment.
The astonishing puppetry and hypnotic original musical (both are credited to Erik Sanko, clearly a genius) were entrancingly coordinated. Indeed, the productions flow was largely generated through visual and aural means.
The narrative flirted at points with becoming an illustrated version of The Wind in the Willows, especially when ensemble members in animal masks frolicked joyfully together.
The wilderness was sentimentalized, as though there were no struggle in existence. Deer roved with wolf, as birds fluttered in an innocent paradise. The only predator of note is mankind, which treats the planet as food and fuel for its insatiable quest for domination.
Competition for life is a biological principle, and human greed, which has ushered in what has been called the Anthropocene, an epoch marked by human-induced ecological calamity, is a fact of nature even as it actively destroys whole swaths of it.
Simple dichotomies weaken arguments and undermine consciousness and conscience. But perhaps its not wise to read the allegory of Memory Rings too literally.
Everything on stage was a work of human creativity. We saw the Methuselah tree assembled; we watched the performers don jaunty animal heads and prance around coated in pine needles; we marveled at the entrance of uncannily real miniature human beings, led by company members who seemed less alive by comparison.
Art and nature were so completely interwoven that it became impossible to tell them apart. Their fates, it is presumed, are similarly tied.
It was through the majesty of the design and Ryan Heffingtons dream-like choreography that the production spoke so eloquently and ardently to the current crisis. Darron L. Wests sound, Brian H. Scotts lighting, Henrik Vibskovs costumes and Keith Skretchs video contributed to this magnificently integrated vision.
The web of life is under assault. Companies like Phantom Limb and Canadas Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes (also presented by CAP) have conscripted miraculous puppets in this battle to defend the biosphere, and they have proven to be an impressive fighting force.
charles.mcnulty@latimes.com
Hello! Im Mark Olsen, and welcome to your weekly field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
This week I reviewed the latest vehicle for the comedy dynamo that is Melissa McCarthy, The Boss. Directed by Ben Falcone, with the script credited to McCarthy, Falcone and Steve Mallory, the film is about a financial self-help guru who loses her fortune.
Alas, I found the movie a disappointment. As I wrote, It is hard to think of a movie squandering the opportunity of a perfectly timed cultural moment quite like The Boss Just imagine the filmmakers good fortune in tapping into issues that appeal to people on both sides of the current political divide. In the right hands, The Boss could skewer the brash ambition and entitled certitude of a Donald Trump type and the desire to see all that dismantled and discarded by Bernie Sanders-style supporters. But these are not the right hands.
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Weve got some pretty exciting screenings and Q&As coming together on the big board back at Indie Focus HQ. Check back at events.latimes.com for more info.
Nonstop movies. Movies nonstop.
The Invitation
A mix of pitch-black L.A. satire and disturbing horror freak-out, The Invitation is also the first feature film from director Karyn Kusama in a number of years.
The less you know about Karyn Kusamas excellent psychological thriller The Invitation the better, wrote Katie Walsh in her review for The Times. She lauds Kusama for parceling out just enough information to understand its logic, while leaving certain dim recesses mysterious.
In the New York Times, Manohla Dargis said, Dinner parties in movies tend to be overdetermined affairs, ideal settings for wit, wisdom and the breakdown of civilization Still, theres something off about the hostess, whos slinking around barefoot wearing a vacant smile and a long white dress. Its the kind of number that Joan Didion might once have slipped on for another beautiful-people night of anomie and booze.
At MTV, Amy Nicholson notes, With the wickedly sharp The Invitation, Kusama has demanded that Hollywood give her a seat at the table. Id give her one or else.
At BuzzFeed, Alison Willmore said, its buildup is particularly good, melding Los Angeles hippie-dippieism with therapy-readied sensitivity in a group of characters who think of themselves as too sophisticated and too accepting to blink at growing weirdness.
Jim Hemphill had a fine Q&A with Kusama on the strategies behind the movie in Filmmaker magazine.
I spoke to Kusama along with screenwriters/producers Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi for a story that will be running soon. As the film slowly ratchets up the tension, a dinner party goes awry, viewers are drawn further and further in.
I had to be thinking what the calibration was all the time, said Kusama. A single look has meaning in the film, particularly if youre watching it for a second or third time. In another film it might be sort of a throwaway and there are no throwaway moments in this film.
Louder Than Bombs
Its no secret that Joachim Trier is among our favorite contemporary filmmakers. His latest film, Louder Than Bombs, is his English-language feature debut, a story of a family dealing with grief starring Jesse Eisenberg, Gabriel Byrne, Amy Ryan and Isabelle Huppert.
In her review in The Times, Sheri Linden said, beneath the well-worn dysfunctional-family setup are bracing observations of the human coping mechanism With its unforced incidents and subtle performances, Triers film makes potently clear that emotional truth is a matter of perspective.
In the New York Times, A.O. Scott said the film is disarmingly quiet, not unlike the Smiths album that shares its title. Buried or deflected emotion conveyed through mordant remarks, pregnant glances, long stretches of silence can generate more impact than explosive drama Mr. Triers direction is as restrained and tense as the behavior of his characters, who suffer without making too much noise about it until they seem ready to explode.
Bilge Ebiri at the Village Voice wrote, in finding a narrative and visual style that embodies that obsessiveness, that lost-ness, Trier puts us inside his characters heads. Whats more, he does so without it ever feeling forced, or like some kind of authorial dictum. For all the films seemingly unusual narrative choices, you emerge from it thinking this story couldnt properly be told any other way.
Ill be publishing a story on Trier and the film soon. As he was introducing the movie at its recent Los Angeles premiere, Trier implied how telling a story in America wasnt so different from his movies made in Norway. Im from Norway, he said, the suburbs of Europe.
Demolition
Director Jean-Marc Vallee has brought out acclaimed performances from actresses such as Emily Blunt and Reese Witherspoon and actors Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto. With his new Demolition, he turns his attention to actor Jake Gyllenhaal and a tale of a man dealing with the shock of his wifes sudden death.
As The Times own Kenneth Turan put it, Demolition is a well-meaning misfire, terribly earnest but unconvincing for all of that. A film more pleased with itself than it has reason to be, it does provide a chance to watch the always-involving Jake Gyllenhaal at work.
In the New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote, Mr. Gyllenhaals strong performance still doesnt add enough substance to a film that is hollow at the center.
In one of the movies most positive reviews, Alonso Duralde at the Wrap added, Demolition strikes a tricky balance; its a comedy of manners that never judges its heros bizarre behavior. Had it stuck to its emotional guns, it would stand much taller, but even its ultimate flaws cant erode its sturdy foundation.
Steve Zeitchik visited the set during the making of the film. Gyllenhaal said of working with Vallee, Theres an interesting balance between absolute freedom and absolute control [when] making a movie with Jean-Marc. And whats amazing is to watch him dance back and forth between the two.
The Girlfriend Experience
We are partisans of cinema in these parts, no doubt about it. But in todays media age, that also means digging television. The new series The Girlfriend Experience features any number of people we like from movies. Its a veritable shopping list of our favorite talent, with Steven Soderbergh, Amy Seimetz, Lodge Kerrigan, Riley Keough, Kate Lyn Sheil and Shane Carruth. Were so excited, were figuring out how to get the Starz channel.
The series is loosely based on Soderberghs 2009 movie, which starred Sasha Grey, about a young woman who works as an escort providing not just sex but also companionship and comfort like an actual relationship for a top-dollar price.
In reviewing the show, The Times Mary McNamara said, The Girlfriend Experience so longs to be arty, with its walls of glass and indirect lighting, that watching it is a bit like flipping through a stack of style and shelter magazines at the doctors office Before you know it, 30 minutes have passed in which nothing much has happened, beyond the reinforcement of 1 million infuriating stereotypes and the thought of how great it would be if the narrative turned to Christine using her legal abilities to improve the lives of prostitutes, high-end and otherwise.
The Times Libby Hill will be publishing a feature piece of her own soon. As Seimetz said to her, The first season is about a woman thats figuring out her boundaries as she goes. Shes not seasoned, shes not always making the best decisions, but shes at least handling herself.
Email me if you have questions, comments or suggestions, and follow me on Twitter @IndieFocus.
Outlander made its triumphant return to television Saturday night in a Season 2 premiere that followed Jamie and Claire as they fled from Scotland to France in an effort to stop the Jacobite rebellion and alter the course of history.
But that was only half of it. The episode actually opened in 1948 Scotland, where in a flash-forward scene, Claire is reunited with her husband, Frank, after a two-year (or is it two-century?) absence and faces the uncomfortable task of explaining how she traveled back in time, fell in love with someone else and is now carrying his child. (Dont you just hate it when that happens?)
We spoke to showrunner Ron Moore about Season 2s big resets, Season 1s brutal finale and the challenges of writing a series thats constantly reinventing itself.
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Youve got a very different story and setting in Season 2. Does that feel exciting or daunting?
Its a little bit of both. With this show and this story, it keeps changing and evolving, so its a fresh creative challenge. Thats really fun and it gets everybodys spirits up.
But its also a huge production challenge for that same reason. We had to create new sets, new costumes, new location. Theres literally not a single set we could use again for this season. Even Game of Thrones has Kings Landing.
In terms of shooting and production, you really rely on standing sets to save you a lot of time and money and energy. With this show, everything is new all the time. It just takes a tremendous amount of thought.
How does it affect you as a storyteller?
It just means that theres no comfortable rhythm that you get into. If youre doing Friends, youre in the apartment again. Then were going to do a couple days down in the coffee shop.
With Outlander, you just dont have a template to start from. Theres really no typical episode. Theres no cliche version of what our show is. Every one is like a little movie.
Again, its a blessing and a curse. Again, youre constantly being challenged, and theres an excitement to that. But its tiring because, man, sometimes you just want to do the same episode.
The show also tonally shifts a lot, from moments of escapism and fantasy to being very intense and brutal and realistic.
The show has a lot of different colors to it. That has to do a lot with the source material.
Diana [Gabaldon]s books are very hard to categorize. She could tell you stories how she struggled for years and years; she was always fighting booksellers not to stock the books in the romance section. Its really more of an adventure series. The show is reflective of that.
There are a lot of different colors to it. There are a lot of different moods and styles of storytelling. The adventures themselves dont easily fit into oh, this is a bodice-ripper. Youre going on a journey thats not just the typical journey.
If you were going to say its a romance story about this woman and the strapping Highlander she falls in love with, that just doesnt really define the story.
Right. A prime example of that would be Black Jack Randall raping Jamie at the end of Season 2. Its sort of the antithesis of what youd expect from a romance.
Its not where you take your male lead character, generally, regardless of the genre. It was just a very shocking, transgressive thing to do.
When I read the book for the first time, I had no idea that thats where it was heading, and I was like, Wow, this is really something.
I realized, boy, if we did this on TV, people just wouldnt know what to say. We decided were going to go there too on the show. We decided lets be unflinching about it. Lets not make it gratuitous, but lets not flinch away from it either.
Theres been a lot of conversation recently about portrayals of rape on TV. Can you talk about how you approached it?
We always knew this is where we were going, so the conversation started early. We knew it would probably be the last two episodes.
We wanted to get inside Jack a little bit more and make sure that he was fully fleshed-out. It was important to me that we understand him as a man and a human being, that he wasnt just a monster, he wasnt just an easily dismissed creature of fantasy. In some ways, it would make it more horrible if he was a real person.
We had a lot of conversations about what the power struggle was about, what would it mean to break Jamie as a person, what complete surrender would mean in those circumstances. It was long conversations with the director and then with the cast. We set aside days for them to rehearse these scenes. Wed watch them in rehearsals and have more conversations.
Everyone just approached it in a very professional way and we said, Lets deal with this as honestly as weve dealt with everything in the show. Its not something were not going to glorify, but we want to face it. We want to not flinch away from it.
Then the final step was in the editing room; that was really the most crucial decision point. In editing, you can stay on an image, and the longer youre on it, the more uncomfortable it gets. There were times where I felt like I didnt want to watch anymore. I wanted to move the audience emotionally. I wanted to shock them. But I didnt want them to turn away from the show. The only guide I had for that was my gut. If I couldnt watch it, that was too far.
So the effect of those scenes didnt wear off after watching them many times in the editing room?
No, it was always very disturbing and very powerful. No matter how many times I watched it, it retained its power.
Were there things you were actively trying not to do? Things you really wanted to avoid in your depiction of the rape?
There are certain tropes I wanted to avoid. I didnt want false heroism on the part of Jamie. I didnt want mustache-twirling or overplaying glee on the part of Jack. You dont want to ennoble the victim and raise him up spiritually where theyre rising above it by saying some clever line like, You may have me, but youll never really have me.
Is it safe to say that Jamie will still be working through the trauma in Season 2?
There are reverberations of [the rape] throughout the second season. We meet Jamie a few days after the events in Wentworth Prison, so its definitely still on his mind. Youll see that it affects the relationship between him and Claire as they move forward to disrupt the Jacobites.
Thats unusual too the idea that its something that lingers. So often, rape is just used as a plot device.
Thats kind of TV in general. Traumatic, horrible things happen all the time, and people forget about it next week. Its sometimes tough to be true to how people really react. You are trying to tell a story, and you dont want it to always be about that one incident, but at the same time it would affect them psychologically and emotionally.
How did adapating the second novel in the series, Dragonfly in Amber, compare to adapting the first, Outlander?
Season 2 and Book 2 are much more complex. Theres more time travel involved. The whole Parisian storyline is very complicated: Theres lots of political machinations, and the Jacobites and the French court, new characters showing up. Year Two is just a much tougher nut to crack.
You departed from the book by opening in 1948 instead of 1968. Why?
When I was looking at it, I thought it worked well on the page to start in 1968. Its the beginning of a book. Its a surprising opening, but I just thought for the TV audience, it was too big of a step.
I like the idea of starting in the 20th century ... but to also advance the story 20 years ... was just so much. I just thought, lets start a bit more chronologically, see her in 1948, invest in that whole tale of her and Frank and the reconciliation. Then lets flash back and see how it all happened.
I just thought it was a smaller bite for the audience to take, and it would get us to the same point and we will get to the 1968 story eventually.
The series looks different this season, but is the storytelling different too?
Now its much more interior. Now youre in Paris, dealing with the aristocracy, the court of Louis XIV and trying to get inside of the nascent Jacobite rebellion. Its a lot of who do you trust and how can you lie to these people and who is the real enemy and whos out to get Claire?
Theres a lot more politics involved. Its a very different show creatively.
The first season was an outdoor adventure, and youre on horseback a lot and there are a lot of physical threats to people. Thats one style of storytelling.
Season 2 is really like the Paris salons and the courts. Its much more about dialogue and subtlety and conspiracy.
Theres not a lot of continuity, but are there any lessons from Season 1 youre applying to Season 2?
We learned we can really lean on our cast. We just scored big time with [Caitriona Balfe] and Sam [Heughan] and Tobias [Menzies]. As complicated as Season 2 is, there was really nothing we couldnt throw at them.
Gabaldon has published eight books now. Thats a lot of material. Whats your plan moving forward?
The basic plan is to keep doing a book a season. Well keep doing them as long as theres an audience that wants to watch them. Dianas working on a ninth. Were not running out of books like Game of Thrones is.
Follow @MeredithBlake on Twitter.
FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
Travel stage
Pico Iyer in conversation, plus safety tips, budget travel and more.
When, where: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday on the USC campus.
Admission, info: Free admission; parking $12 in USC lots. events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks
SPAIN
Presentation
Tom Harter, president of WalkEurope, will discuss Barcelona, Madrid and Toledo.
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When, where: 7:30 p.m. Monday at Distant Lands, 20 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena.
Admission, info: Free. RSVP to (626) 449-3220.
MT. WHITNEY
Workshop
Whitney guide Kurt Wedberg will offer tips on gear and trip planning, and show detailed slides of various approaches.
When, where: 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Adventure 16 store in Tarzana, 5425 Reseda Blvd., and Friday at the Los Angeles store, 11161 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles
Admission, info: Free. (818) 345-4266 for Tarzana; (310) 473-4574 for Los Angeles
SAN PEDRO
Earth Day and Bird Fest
Celebrate by joining in a beach cleanup followed by Earth Day and bird festivities at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium.
When, where: 8 a.m. Saturday beach cleanup, then 10 a.m. Earth Day activities. Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, 3720 Stephen M. White Drive, San Pedro.
Admission, info: Free. (310) 548-7562.
JOSHUA TREE
Field class
Learn to identify common and rare birds and understand the role each plays in the desert ecosystem.
When, where: 6 p.m. Friday-noon April 17, Black Rock Visitor Center, Black Rock Campground, Yucca Valley.
Admission, info: $145. (760) 367-5535.
Please email announcements at least three weeks before the event to travel@latimes.com.
With their backpacks strapped on, the first group of hikers set off from Topanga State Park early Sunday and headed two miles up the muddy fire road.
The surrounding hills were a vibrant green a gift from the weekends rains -- and mustard plants popped bright yellow along the footpath. At the head of the group, a hiking troubadour, Armond Hovanesian, sang California Dreamin and Here Comes the Sun as he strummed a guitar.
When they reached their destination at Eagle Rock, the Valencia Hiking Crew converged with five other organized groups of hikers. More than 150 people were there to honor seven fellow hikers who died in September when they were caught in a flash flood in narrow Keyhole Canyon in Zion National Park.
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We used to come here with Don on hikes on Sundays, said George Mahshigian, one of the organizers who helped raised $2,500 to have a wooden bench dedicated in honor of Don Teichner, 55; Gary Favela, 51; Muku Reynolds, 59; Steve Arthur, 58; Linda Arthur, 57; Robin Brum, 53; and Mark MacKenzie, 56.
Its something lasting to remember our friends, said organizer Larry Simmer.
The seven experienced hikers were in Zion last fall to go exploring in Keyhole Canyon. Less than an hour after the group got a canyon permit, the National Weather Service reported a 50% chance of rain. About 20 minutes after authorities believe the hikers drove into the park and lost cellphone service, a flash flood warning was issued for the area.
All seven were swept away in the storm on what turned out to be one of the deadliest days of weather in Utahs history. The bodies of all the victims were later recovered miles apart.
He just did what he did. He loved to hike and he shared it with others -- and then this happened, said Teichners daughter Melanie Vinokur. Thats what happens when you do what you love to do.
Teichner was the leader of the Valencia Hiking Crew.
Renee Brum was in Topanga Canyon to remember her sister, Robin. On the trip last fall, she was really having a blast that day from the texts back and forth, Brum said.
The bench dedication is just a great thing that theyre doing for this group of seven [who] just would have loved it, Brum said.
As the informal ceremony got underway, Brums husband and father flew over the service in a Cessna 182.
Hovanesian sang a Beatles mashup of In My Life and Free as a Bird. Vinokur read a dedication and then christened the bench by smashing a small bag of trail mix on it as the crowd erupted into cheers and applause.
State laws do not allow park benches to memorialize individuals, said Stephen Bylin, park superintendent for Topanga State Park. Instead, the benches and their inscriptions are intended to be inspirational. On a ledge looking out to Eagle Rock, the new bench reads:
Dont walk in front of me/ Dont walk behind me/ Walk beside me and just be my friend/ Keyhole 7.
alice.walton@latimes.com
@TheCityMaven
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In June 1931, a grand fountain was installed in Beverly Hills that, according to news reports, led thousands to stop their cars and gape. Officers were stationed nearby to sort out the ensuing traffic snarls.
Back then the location, at Santa Monica and Wilshire boulevards, hardly was as built up and busy as it is today. The Electric Fountain with its repeating, rainbow-colored water show was a crowd-creating spectacular.
Time passes. Technology changes. Pipes get clogged. Tiles crack. Algae turns cast stone that once was tan a mucky, grayish green.
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In recent months, the fountain has been undergoing an overhaul, its water turned off while its innards were updated and its outer parts got a scrub-down and face-lift.
It went back into service in grand style Tuesday, played in by members of the Beverly Hills High School Marching Band, who wore uniforms of orange, white and black, shakos with white plumes on their heads.
The bas relief at the fountains base is a lesson in California history: its first inhabitants, the mission padres, the discovery of gold.
Atop a pedestal at its center, a Gabrielino Tongva Indian kneels in prayer some say for rain. The figure was designed by Robert Merrell Gage, the fountain by architect Ralph Carlin Flewelling.
At the dedication of the refurbished fountain, Julia Bogany, a Gabrielino Tongva Indian from San Bernardino, was on hand to offer a blessing. Dear Creator, we thank you for this day with this gorgeous sunshine...
The original piece which cost $22,000 was given to Beverly Hills by the mother of silent-screen star Harold Lloyd; its installation paid for by the Womens Club of Beverly Hills, over which for a time she presided.
Lloyds granddaughter, Suzanne, who attended last weeks dedication, said that although she never met her great-grandmother, she knew her to be a forceful woman thus her nickname, Bam.
The older woman, she said, always wanted the same things from her son that he gave to his wife. If she gets a bracelet, I get a bracelet. If she gets a fur coat, I get a fur coat. It was tit for tat with everything, Suzanne Lloyd said.
The fountain was probably a form of appeasement from son to mother, she said. It was known in the family as Bams fountain.
But the now-63-year-old Suzanne Lloyd, who was raised by her grandparents, used to call it the fairy fountain because she thought there was a fairy at the top.
On the way home from Trader Vics, her grandparents sometimes would take her past the fountain several times so she could see the colors change from blue to red to pink and muliticolor.
It was a kind of like a water Christmas tree, she said.
The restoration cost $1.5 million, with the city matching private contributions raised by the Friends of Beverly Gardens Park, which also is working to restore the rest of the 1.9-mile linear series of gardens and paths that runs along the northern side of Santa Monica Boulevard and separates the business of the famous city from its homes.
At the dedication ceremony, much mention was made of the spruced-up fountains greater efficiency. Its lights that change color yellow, red, blue, green are now LED. Its water, said Mayor John Mirisch, was trucked in from the Cabrillo Reservoir area and recirculates, in keeping with the citys conservation efforts.
Tuesday afternoon was hot, and the fountains spray provided a cool, misty relief.
Maybe the kneeling figure also did his part to bring rain later in the week.
nita.lelyveld@latimes.com
Twitter: @latimescitybeat
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Americas newest aircraft carrier packs 50,278 tons of steel, much of it in glorious Navy gray, but all eyes last week turned toward the 1,200-pound piece of bronze under wraps in Hangar Bay 2.
The aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford now has a statue of its namesake to accompany its crew to sea. The sculpture was unveiled in an emotional ceremony April 7 that, in some ways, was more than a simple dedication.
It marked the turning of a page.
There was Capt. John F. Meier, the Fords first commander whose tenure ended the next day. Although he will never lead the ship to open water, Meiers legacy is clear: Sailor by sailor, he built a crew to operate a ship that will mark a generational change in naval warfare.
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There was Susan Ford Bales, the presidents daughter and ships sponsor. She spoke after Meier as the statue was still shrouded in dark cloth. At one moment, she turned to a group of hard-hatted shipbuilders who had gathered to watch the ceremony.
My fellow shipbuilders ...
She paused as emotion filled her voice.
Let me say this again, because Im proud to say it. My fellow shipbuilders: Today is a day filled with happiness. But its also a day filled with some sadness, because its the last time Ill speak publicly to you here in the shipyard.
The term fellow shipbuilder was more than phrase of affection. Ford Bales fingerprints will be on the aircraft carrier as it heads to sea trials this summer, followed by delivery to the Navy this year. Over the last 10 years, she worked on the ship during her many visits to the Newport News shipyard.
Navy tradition dictates that a ships sponsor participates in noteworthy events, such as breaking a bottle across the bow during christening. In her case, that was not enough.
Along the way, Ive turned wrenches with you, she said. Ive punched holes. Ive pulled cable. I strung telephone wires. I worked up in the big blue crane. I tested weapons elevators. Calibrated dual band radar. Turned on the pumps to flood the dry dock.
Matt Mulherin, president of Newport News Shipbuilding, said there is no model on how to be a ships sponsor, and she certainly set the far extreme of how involved a ships sponsor can be.
After the speeches came the big unveiling. The cover was pulled away and the statue came into full view amid raucous applause.
There stood Navy Lt. Cmdr. Gerald Ford as he appeared in World War II aboard the light aircraft carrier Monterey. The bronze figure is 7 feet tall a full foot taller than the real-life president. His right hand holds a navigational sextant. He gazes toward the horizon, one foot resting on the ships scupper rail.
Theres a story behind that scupper.
As Meier described it, Ford was aboard the Monterey in December 1944 when it was hit by Typhoon Cobra. A fire broke out, and the commanding officer directed Ford to lead the firefighting effort. As he headed toward the flames, the ship listed 25 degrees. Blue water crashed over the deck.
Lt. Cmdr. Ford was nearly washed over the side, but he grabbed a scupper at the last second. It saved his life.
hlessig@dailypress.com
Lessig writes for the Daily Press.
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Five years after he was charged in a sealed federal indictment and almost two years after he was captured by U.S. agents in the Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives, accused Russian hacker Roman Seleznev finally seemed ready to face justice in the United States.
He hadnt attempted to escape from a federal detention center near Seattle, for example, though it was something he and his father, a Russian lawmaker, had reportedly discussed last fall on a monitored prison phone.
He has almost completely stopped acting as his own attorney and running afoul of the American legal process.
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And he seemed pleased with what is now the sixth set of attorneys hired to represent him.
But in keeping with the halting legal pace by a defendant the Secret Service says is a multimillionaire and one of the worlds most prolific traffickers of stolen financial information, Seleznevs new defense team is asking that his upcoming criminal trial, set for next month, be delayed again.
Seattle attorney John Henry Browne, whose clients have included serial killer Ted Bundy and U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who murdered 16 Afghan civilians, was hired by Seleznev two months ago and says he is still plowing through 10,000 pages of documents, 4.75 terabytes of forensic images and other evidence.
What can we discuss, your escape plan or what? Valery Seleznev, Russian lawmaker, in what an attorney said was a facetious comment to his son in prison
With related charges of racketeering and conspiracy filed against Seleznev in Las Vegas and Atlanta involving several more terabytes of discovery material, it is simply not possible for counsel to prepare for trial and effectively represent Mr. Seleznev in a trial on May 9, Browne said.
Seleznev, who Russian officials say was kidnapped by the U.S. in anticipation of trading him to Russia for secrets-leaker Edward Snowden (which the U.S. denies), faces up to 30 years in prison on accusations of bank and wire fraud and computer theft of credit card numbers from hundreds of U.S. businesses.
The targets of his suspected Internet hijackings using malware he is accused of electronically planting from overseas included the Phoenix Zoo, the Boeing Employees Credit Union of Seattle, City News Stand in Chicago, the Latitude Bar in New York City, and a collection of West Coast restaurants and pizzerias among them, outlets of the Zpizza chain of Newport Beach.
American Express, MasterCard and Visa have reported a collective $35 million in losses related to the case, and prosecutors say theyre finding indications of more thefts on Seleznevs confiscated computers. As many as 2 million credit card numbers were downloaded and then sold on the black market through Seleznevs operation in recent years, the government claims.
Seleznev, 31, first came to the Secret Services attention seven years ago after he was accused of downloading credit card numbers from a restaurant in Coeur dAlene, Idaho. An electronic trail led to other U.S. businesses, and by 2012 to a sealed indictment initially charging him with 18 criminal counts since expanded to 40.
Because of the considerable evidence and exhibits, Browne says going to trial next month would be a miscarriage of justice. In a court filing last week, Browne and his associate Emma Scanlan said that they realize that this request may cause frustration for the government as it faces the prospect of another continuance due to a change in counsel, but that it should be done in the best interests of the public and the defendant. A ruling is yet to come.
Browne has also filed a motion to have some of the evidence thrown out, saying the government intentionally or as a consequence of gross incompetence mishandled Seleznevs laptop computer. A forensic expert for the defense says some of the computer data has been changed and its possible the government has altered the files. Assistant U.S. Atty. Seth Wilkinson denies that, saying, All of the computer activity was the result of routine, automatic operating system activity, not human interaction.
Also at issue is the legality of Seleznevs July 5, 2014, arrest.
Seleznev was passing, with his wife and child, through security at Male International Airport in the Maldives, which has no extradition treaty with the U.S. Asked to step out of the line, Seleznev was reportedly turned over to U.S. agents in a prearranged handoff and flown to Guam for a hearing. Four flights later, detoured by a hurricane and slowed by two planes with mechanical trouble, he landed in Seattle.
The Russians, including Seleznevs father, Valery, a member of the State Duma, Russias lower house of parliament, likened the arrest to extraordinary rendition flights that have been used by the U.S. to transport suspected terrorists to black sites, or secret prisons overseas.
FBI Director James B. Comey has since made it clear that such apprehensions are legal tactics in the war against computer thieves.
Its too easy for those criminals to think that I can sit in my basement halfway around the world and steal everything that matters to an American, he told the CBS show 60 Minutes. We want them looking over their shoulders when theyre sitting at a keyboard.
They also should be aware of the governments warrantless eavesdropping, done legally in prison. Seleznev and his father found that out during an international phone call in August. Speaking in Russian, Seleznevs father asked, What can we discuss, your escape plan or what? and went on to chat with him about tampering with a witness and delaying a hearing by staging a medical emergency, according to prosecutors and a transcript of the call. His father said he had found some magicians who were ready to create a miracle, leading to a fake illness and his sons hospitalization.
One of Seleznevs then-attorneys called the escape remark clearly a facetious reference that was lost in translation.
Anderson is a special correspondent based in Seattle.
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Hillary Clinton needles New York mayor for slow endorsement
In what passes for campaign humor, Hillary Clinton mocked New York City Mayor Bill de Blasios sluggishness in endorsing her, and her own difficulty using a subway MetroCard, late Saturday night.
She and the mayor both appeared at the Inner Circle, an annual black-tie dinner attended by New York City media and government types.
Clinton walked on stage as Mayor de Blasio was performing his portion of the show, which also featured Leslie Odom Jr., from the cast of the Broadway smash Hamilton.
Thanks for the endorsement, Bill, she said. Took you long enough.
Sorry, Hillary, De Blasio said. I run on C.P. time.
Cautious politician time, she said. OK, there are a lot of things I could ask you of international, national, city and state importance, she said.
Will you just fix those MetroCard slots? It took me like five swipes, she said. Fix the turnstiles.
Well get right on it, de Blasio said. Absolutely.
Neither mentioned that the only reason Clinton was in the subway was because Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic nomination, mistakenly said in a Daily News interview that he used a token to ride a subway last year. Tokens were discontinued in 2003.
Well, you are my second-favorite guy named Bill, Clinton told the mayor.
Thank you very much. I got your back, he said.
Then Odom spoke up: Do not forget to vote in the New York State primary.
Thanks so much, Clinton said. But please can somebody get me tickets to Hamilton?
Sanders already has bested her on the Hamilton front. He took his wife, Jane, to see the musical on Friday night.
The United States holds 2.2 million people in its prisons, and every year, some 650,000 of them are released. If they are to re-enter society as productive, law-abiding citizens, they often need mental health or drug treatment, education, training, health care, jobs and, of course, they all need housing. Those without a decent roof over their heads are obviously less likely to make a successful transition. Yet affordable housing is often scarce, and a past criminal conviction is often a serious barrier to a skeptical landlord.
Mindful of that, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issued new guidelines on Monday, restricting landlords ability to take into account criminal records when considering tenants for housing. No longer may a landlord simply adopt a blanket policy of denying housing to anyone with a record of conviction or arrest. That kind of policy may appear to treat every prospective tenant, regardless of race or gender, the same, but, in practice, HUD said, it has a disparate impact on racial and ethnic minorities, because they have high rates of arrest and incarceration. That violates the Fair Housing Act, the agency says.
That doesnt mean an individuals criminal record cant be taken into account by a landlord, or that a potentially dangerous tenant cant be turned away. But under HUDs new guidance, the landlord must consider the severity of the crime, the length of time since it was committed and must be able to prove through reliable evidence that the criminal history makes housing the person a risk to other tenants or the landlords property. Merely having an arrest record without a conviction wont pass muster at all.
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The agency is absolutely right to be working on the important issue of re-entry. It is reasonable to expect landlords to consider criminal records on a case by case basis.
But HUDs guidance to housing providers is distressingly vague and in some ways arbitrary. What evidence will show whether a person with a record is a risk? Can a repeat arsonist only be turned away after a landlord researches studies on recidivism among convicted arsonists? How long does a person with a conviction for marijuana possession need to be out of prison before a landlord must rent to him or her? Is it the same number of years for a murderer? Isnt it a bit odd that HUD is making landlords consider violent criminals on a case-by-case basis even though in the Fair Housing Act, Congress specifically allowed landlords to turn away people convicted of manufacturing or distributing a controlled substance?
Its a tricky balance: While it is imperative for practical as well as moral reasons that people with criminal pasts be helped to re-enter society, landlords certainly have both a right and an obligation to protect their tenants and their property. HUD officials say theyre not trying to force landlords to make decisions that would jeopardize the security of their tenants. But the guidelines may leave landlords with more questions than answers.
Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
Once a decade, the United Nations organizes a meeting where every country in the world comes together to figure out what to do about drugs and up to now, theyve always pledged to wage a relentless war, to fight until the planet is drug-free. Theyve consistently affirmed U.N. treaties written in the 1960s and 1970s, mainly by the United States, which require every country to arrest and imprison their way out of drug-related problems.
But at this years meeting in New York City later this month, several countries are going to declare: This approach has been a disaster. We cant do this anymore. Enough.
The drug war is now the subject of a raucous debate within the U.S. and if you look at the stories of three influential people who will speak on behalf of their countries for change at the U.N., they might sound strangely familiar. The reasons why U.S. citizens are rejecting the war on drugs are, it turns out, also the reasons why it is being rejected all over the world, from the Caribbean to Europe to South America.
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In August 2014, the justice minister for Jamaica, Mark Golding, had to make a phone call no government official ever wants to make. He had to explain to a mother that her son was dead. Mario Deane was picked up on the street because he was smoking a spliff, put into custody and beaten to death.
It was, for Golding, a moment that made him realize he could no longer support his countrys drug laws. All over the world, the criminalization of cannabis has been used as an excuse to harass unpopular minorities (in Jamaicas case, the poor), and, he told me, it has worsened the relationship between those young men and law enforcement. So he persuaded the Cabinet to decriminalize cannabis for personal possession. We wanted to take ganja out of the picture, he says, as a medium through which the police would use hard or heavy policing against younger men.
Existing U.N. drug treaties allow decriminalization of drugs in small amounts for personal use. But they dont allow countries to create regulated structures for buying and selling drugs, which would drive the drug-dealing gangs out of business. Jamaica is therefore still required to wage a futile war on people who sell cannabis, and farmers who grow it, meaning there is still an armed conflict between police and the young men whom they accuse of dealing.
A country should be in a position to design its own regime, Golding will argue at the U.N. The eradication of drugs hasnt happened, despite decades of war waged on it. It is, he believes, unjust: Why is it that people can buy a bottle of rum or a bottle of wine but you cant do that for cannabis?
In the Czech Republic, the official responsible for drug policy is Jindrich Voboril. As a teenager on the streets of communist-controlled Czechoslovakia, Voboril was guzzling opiates and amphetamines and was, he told me, a hardcore experimenter with almost any substance he could find.
I was growing up on the streets, so I was a typical street kid, he says. He was trying to escape an abusive home life where his father was an alcoholic, and a public life dominated by communist tyranny. I was on the path of developing a serious drug problem, he says, and before long, he was watching his friends die of overdoses or suicides.
One thing that pulled Voboril away from addiction was his discovery of the democratic resistance. When he became an activist in the Czech underground he felt a new sense of meaning and purpose, and it saved him.
Soon after the dictatorship fell, he set up the first major drug treatment program in the Czech Republic. He wanted to create practical policies that would help addicts find purpose and save people like his friends only to find compassionate policies were discouraged, or outright banned, by the global drug war, which is built instead on punishment. The drug war, it seemed to him, was based on ideology, not results, just like the communist system he had fought successfully to overthrow. If you put pledges for a drug-free world in a different font, he says, it could be a Stalinist slogan.
He believes that in the real world, addicts are mostly people with mental health problems like depression, or people trapped in terrible environments. Punishing them only makes the problem worse. Accordingly he wants to see a global transfer of resources from punishing addicts to helping them turn their lives around. Such alternatives work.
In the 15 years since Portugal decided to decriminalize drug use and invest instead in treatment and prevention services, injecting drug use has fallen by 50%.
In the 15 years since Portugal decided to decriminalize drug use and invest instead in treatment and prevention services, use of injected drugs has fallen by 50%. Since Switzerland legalized heroin for addicts more than a decade ago, nobody has died of an overdose on legal
heroin.
A key figure in shaping Colombias strategy at the upcoming U.N. conference is Maricio Rodriguez, an economist and diplomat. The drug war, he told me in Cartagena, is the worst tragedy we have ever lived in, in Colombia and probably all of Latin America. The combined death toll from the Latin American drug war exceeds even the war in Syria. Every day that goes by is a day in which we are losing hundreds of people and we are losing hundreds of millions of dollars, he explains.
Like most Colombians, he has relatives who were murdered when narco-traffickers were taking over the country. Everybody has a story, he says.
To explain why this carnage is happening, Rodriguez cited the late Nobel Prize-winning U.S. economist Milton Friedman, who grew up in Chicago under alcohol prohibition, and learned there what happens if you ban a popular substance. It doesnt matter whether the government targets whiskey or cocaine; a ban forces legal businesses out of the market and armed criminal gangs take it over. They then go to war to control the trade. But once the prohibition ends, so does the violence. (Ask yourself: Where are the violent alcohol dealers today?)
Ranged against reform-minded countries at the U.N. conference will be governments that want to maintain or even intensify the global war, including Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China. Although the U.S. has historically been the most hard-line country, this time, its representatives will arrive at the conference in breach of U.N. drug treaties. The drug laws require a war on cannabis, but four U.S. states and the District of Columbia have now fully legalized the drug. Nobody knows what the result of this U.N. meeting will be, but nobody will ever be able to say again that the world is united behind the idea of a drug war.
Voboril, the Czech Republics street user turned government minister, told me he is itching to tell the U.N. a simple truth: This is reality: This is hundreds of thousands of people dying for one simple reason some governments just dont want to change. Nothing else.
Johann Hari is author of Chasing The Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs.
Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
Bernie Sanders can still win the Democratic presidential nomination but its going to take a miracle. Actually, several miracles. Hell need to win the primary next week in New York, where polls show him running well behind Hillary Clinton. Then hell need to win most of the mid-Atlantic states, including Pennsylvania. And hell need to win big in California and New Jersey in June; small margins of victory wont give him the number of delegates he needs to overtake Clintons substantial lead. Thats not a conspiracy; its just arithmetic.
And thats OK. This is a case where coming close will still count for something.
From the beginning of his improbable run, Sanders has had two goals in mind. One was to become the Democratic nominee; the other was to build a grass-roots movement that could bring about a political revolution from the left.
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Sanders and his supporters havent given up on the first goal. But theyre also running his
campaign with that second, longer-term goal firmly in mind.
Last week, a voter in New York asked the Vermont senator what he would do if he doesnt win. Most candidates would have batted the query away. Sanders said: That is a wonderful question.
Obviously, our hope and expectation is that we are going to win, he said on NBCs Today show. But thats a fair question. We have brought out and seen so much excitement from young people who want to make our country a better place.
If the nomination is lost, he said, we will continue that revolution.
The first step in the event of a loss is using the convention as an organizing event for progressives.
Some supporters have talked of an inside-outside strategy at the Philadelphia convention, with Sanders delegates pressing their case inside the hall while pro-Sanders demonstrators march outside.
They hope to get some of Sanders positions included in the Democratic Party platform, including planks on banning corporate donations to super PACs, renegotiating existing free trade agreements and breaking up the countrys biggest banks.
Clinton has already responded to the energy on her partys left by tacking in Sanders direction on several issues. She now opposes President Obamas proposed trade agreement with Asian countries, a pact she initially promoted. She also changed course to oppose the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas, although she was never firmly in favor. And she has proposed stricter regulations on big banks and other financial institutions, a plan she argues is tougher than Sanders proposal to break up the nations largest banks. (Sanders disagrees.)
If Clinton wins the nomination, Sanders has said he will endorse her and urge his supporters to vote for the Democratic ticket. But he will also try to turn his campaign into a more durable movement to move the Democratic Party to the left.
This campaign is changing peoples lives and changing everyones idea of whats possible, Sanderss top technologist, Zack Exley, told The Nation magazine. No matter what happens, people are going to keep fighting for the political revolution that Bernie helped all of us start. Whats more, these organizing teams, structures, and processes wont have to be reinvented. They will live on. This revolution is only just getting started.
Weve heard that song before. In 2004, insurgent candidate Howard Dean tried to turn his campaign into a progressive movement, Democracy for America, with negligible results. In 2008, President Obamas campaign staff tried to remake their grass-roots network into something called Organizing for America, but that effort failed completely.
Could this time be different? Progressive organizers, an eternally optimistic cadre, say they think so.
This movement is here to stay, argues Ben Wikler of MoveOn.org.
Sanders could turn out to be, for progressives, what [Barry] Goldwater was for conservatives in 1964. Goldwater lost, but he paved the way for Ronald Reagan 16 years later. We dont want to wait that long.
Harold Meyerson, editor of the American Prospect, thinks they may be right, mainly because the economys failure to increase middle-class incomes has pushed so many voters especially young voters to look for new answers.
Sanders could turn out to be, for progressives, what [Barry] Goldwater was for conservatives in 1964. Ben Wikler of MoveOn.org
He noted that a 2012 Gallup Poll found that 53% of Democrats said they had a positive view of socialism and that was before Sanders ran for president.
Bernie Sanders campaign didnt create a new America left, Meyerson wrote recently. It revealed it.
Even if their candidate falls short in the next few primaries, Sanders voters shouldnt give up in despair. Their votes will still count, because the final score will matter not only for this presidential campaign, but the next one.
doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com
Twitter: @doylemcmanus
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David Coonradt came to the Colorado state Republican convention as part of Ted Cruzs persuasion team, a squad of volunteers working to secure more delegates to propel Cruz to the partys presidential nomination.
He came ready to tout the Texas senators gun-rights and antiabortion credentials, but the most crucial information he had to impart appeared on the back of his neon orange T-shirt.
The official Ted Cruz slate, the shirt blared, with the names of 13 prospective delegates below.
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More than 600 people were vying Saturday for 13 delegate slots for the Republican National Convention in July. The Cruz campaign wanted to ensure these loyal 13 secured those spots. Turning their volunteers into walking billboards was just one way to do so.
Donald Trump has won more votes and carried more states than any Republican. Still, he stands a fair chance of losing the GOP nomination because up to now he largely ignored one of the most rudimentary aspects of a presidential run: securing loyal delegates.
In state after state in recent weeks, the Cruz campaign has trounced Trump in those battles, building on work to identify and organize supporters that Cruz began months ago. Those successes are improving Cruzs odds of emerging as the Republican nominee if Trump falls short of winning a majority of delegates.
You have to think of this whole process as having two different tracks to it. Theres the primary process thats about winning and allocating delegates, said Ben Ginsberg, a veteran Republican election lawyer.
But the story that will really be more important to what happens in Cleveland, he said, is the delegate-selection track. Theyre two connected but separate skill sets.
Belatedly, Trump has scrambled to remedy his campaigns shortcomings. Last week, he designated a longtime Washington insider, Paul J. Manafort, to oversee efforts to ensure that Trump has the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.
The nomination process has reached a point that requires someone familiar with the complexities involved in the final stages, Trump said in a statement announcing Manaforts expanded role just over a week after he joined the campaign.
For decades, no one has cared much about the often arcane process by which political parties choose delegates who attend their national conventions. The system has worked like this: Voters cast ballots in primaries and caucuses, one candidate wins a majority, and the convention unfolds as a largely suspense-free television program.
The most vexing choices for many delegates have been which party to attend and whether to wear a silly hat.
Thats all changed this year. As odds have increased that no Republican candidate will win enough delegates before the convention in Cleveland, campaigns have engaged in tense battles over the individuals who will vote in the convention roll call. Many delegates will be free to vote for whichever candidate they choose if no one wins on the first ballot.
In most states, national convention delegates are chosen separately from the primaries or caucuses in which voters say which candidates they prefer. Typically, the selection occurs at state or district conventions.
The results of a state primary generally bind those delegates to support a specific candidate on the conventions first ballot. But if no candidate wins on that first ballot, most states allow their delegates to be unbound. Some states bind their delegates for only one ballot, others for two or more.
In the race to choose delegates, Trumps campaign has been criticized as flat-footed. After he won the Louisiana primary, the New York businessman cried foul when Cruz supporters seized some delegates through subsequent party meetings. Trump bemoaned the maneuvering as unfair. His campaign threatened to challenge the delegate process in that state, where Cruz placed his loyalists in many delegate slots.
In Reno seven days earlier, when the countys Republicans gathered to choose delegates to next months Nevada state convention which, in turn, will choose the national convention delegates the Trump campaign had a much more visible presence than Cruzs.
A Trump staffer was assiduously collecting names and phone numbers of supporters headed to the state convention, compiling the list on a yellow legal pad. But Cruzs campaign had aides there as well, diligently tracking which of their ardent backers were seeking Nevada delegate slots.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who lags far behind in the GOP race, with 143 delegates to Trumps 743 and Cruzs 532, is also pursuing friendly delegates. Emmalee Kalmbach, a spokeswoman for Kasichs campaign, said dozens of staffers and many more volunteers were in the delegate hunt.
This usually invisible process is playing out in increasingly public fashion. The Republican National Committee has put out videos and websites breaking down the delegate rules. Cruz, in a victory speech after his win in Wisconsin this month, asserted hed clinch the nomination either before Cleveland, or at the convention in Cleveland.
The machinations will matter if Trump fails to win a majority of delegates by the time Californias votes are counted on June 7, the final day of the GOP primary season.
Identifying and wooing potential delegates and getting supporters elected to delegate slots is no simple task. An intricate patchwork of rules governs the process, and they vary wildly by state.
Delegates can make their favorite candidate known, but theyre not necessarily required to. Campaigns can identify which delegates they prefer and encourage their supporters to vote for a slate of friendly delegates.
Its not an inconsiderable organizational drill to make sure you have loyal delegates, said Mike Schroeder, California political director for the Cruz campaign. The former state GOP chairman conceived the complicated rules for awarding presidential delegates in the states primary, positioning the Cruz operation well in Californias delegate hunt.
The delegate selection process in Colorado is confusing, it is complicated, it is archaic, said Ryan Call, a former Colorado GOP chairman.
The bulk of Colorados 37 delegates were selected at congressional-district-level gatherings in the last week. Early Saturday, Cruz boasted that together, we won all 21 delegates in those meetings. By evening, he scooped up 13 more. Three other delegate positions will go to party officials.
Lobbying for those coveted delegate positions was robust. Barry Rabinovich, 25, a Cruz supporter who was not on the campaigns official slate, made his pitch to convention-goers waiting in line for coffee, promising to vote for Cruz on every round of the ballot and trumpeting the three-digit number where attendees could find him on the ballot.
The Trump camp, meanwhile, suffered from unforced errors, such as distributed leaflets that incorrectly stated where their preferred delegate candidates would appear on the ballot.
The Trump campaign had a presence at the convention, but operatives were bracing for a rout.
This process just doesnt work well for our kind of candidate and our kind of campaign, said Alan Cobb, a Trump senior advisor. Its an insiders game. Sen. Cruz is certainly good at playing the insider game.
Laura Carno, a Republican strategist, said the Texas senators team had built relationships with local activists.
The way the Cruz campaign seems to have picked their ground-game people gives me confidence they actually know Colorado, said Carno, who fielded so many phone calls from campaigns and supporters in the run-up to the conventions that she stopped answering calls from numbers she didnt recognize.
Some Trump supporters, however, see the delegate machinations as proof that the Republican establishment is conspiring against the billionaire real estate developer.
The Cruz people are trying to steal this, Jacquelyn Marcelle, a Reno-based Trump backer, said during the Washoe County party meeting. The maneuvering has only bolstered her support for Trump and distaste for Cruz, she said.
Why would I vote for a thief? she asked.
But the Cruz campaign dismissed the notion it was doing anything untoward.
Theres a theme throughout the Trump campaign: The minute they lose, they start screaming Liar! Cheater! Schroeder said. These are the rules. Its not very complicated.
Mason reported from Colorado Springs and Barabak from San Francisco.
For more on Campaign 2016, follow @MelMason
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Wading into a campaign controversy, President Obama said Sunday that Hillary Clinton was careless but did not harm national security by using a nonsecure email system when she served as secretary of State.
I continue to believe that she has not jeopardized Americas national security, Obama said in an interview on Fox News Sunday.
What Ive also said is that -- and she has acknowledged -- that theres a carelessness, in terms of managing emails, that she ... recognizes, he added. He added that she did an outstanding job as Americas top diplomat.
The FBI is investigating whether Clinton or her aides mishandled classified information when they used a private email server for some work-related communications during her four years as secretary of State.
The issue has dogged Clintons campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Obamas comments may serve to reassure Clinton supporters as she heads into a crucial final round of primaries against rival Bernie Sanders.
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The State Department has said 22 emails on a server her aides had set up in the basement of her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., contained top secret information, the highest level of classification.
Obama suggested that any secret information in Clintons emails was not highly sensitive.
Theres classified, and then theres classified, Obama said. Theres stuff that is really top-secret, top-secret, and theres stuff that is being presented to the president or the secretary of State, that you might not want on the transom, or going out over the wire, but is basically stuff that you could get from unclassified sources.
Clinton has denied using the email account to send or receive materials marked classified.
Though some emails have since been deemed to be too sensitive to release publicly, Clintons campaign has attributed that to overzealous intelligence officials and over-classification run amok.
The FBI has taken the server and is investigating the case with U.S. Justice Department attorneys.
Many legal experts believe that Clinton faces little risk of being prosecuted for using the private email system to conduct official business.
Using a private email system was not banned at the time, and others in government had used personal email to transact official business.
Obama repeatedly guaranteed the White House would not seek to influence a decision by the Justice Department or FBI about whether to prosecute Clinton if they find evidence of wrongdoing.
I do not talk to the attorney general about pending investigations, Obama said. I do not talk to FBI directors about pending investigations. We have a strict line, and always have maintained it.
He added, I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI, not just in this case, but in any case.
The interview was the Obamas first on Fox News since February 2014.
Obama also said he would not withdraw his nomination of Judge Merrick Garland for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court before the end of his presidency.
Republican leaders in the Senate have refused to hold a hearing or allow a vote on the nomination, arguing that the seat should be filled after the November election.
Obama noted that several Republican senators have met with Garland, which he portrayed as progress.
Originally, the Republicans said they wouldnt meet with him at all, Obama said. Now a number of them have already had meetings. And the questioning that theyre having privately with Judge Garland, is something that should be done publicly, through a hearings process, so the American people can make their own assessment.
Republican state Sen. John Moorlach of Costa Mesa has emerged as a leading voice in the Legislature against skyrocketing debt piled up by public pension systems.
But some in the pension reform movement say the former Orange County treasurer may be contributing to the problem: Moorlach receives an $83,827 government pension check from the Orange County Employees Retirement System while making $100,113 a year as a senator.
At least 16 other state lawmakers collect two checks each month, including Assemblyman Jim Cooper (D-Elk Grove), who retired two years ago at 50 as a captain in the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department. When added to his legislative pay, Cooper's annual pension of $173,820 brings his total income each year to $273,000.
Advocates for a pension system overhaul say legislators are entitled to the benefits they earned. But, they add, the costly pension perk is an example of what is wrong with public retirement benefits: Government workers can retire too soon with lucrative benefits that the pension systems cannot sustain.
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"It's a form of double-dipping, which makes a lot of people angry," said former San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, who is planning a pension reform initiative for the 2018 state ballot. "Most of us have to work until we are 65 or 67 before we can retire when Social Security kicks in."
It's legal under current rules, said Dan Pellissier, president of the group California Pension Reform.
"But the optics are poor, certainly for an elected official to be taking another public salary after retiring," Pellissier said.
The information was gathered by a search of pension system records by the Los Angeles Times just as public policy makers are debating both legislative pay and excesses in public pensions.
Last month, state Controller Betty Yee reported that the public pension system has a long-term unfunded liability of $63.7 billion.
On April 27, a state panel will meet to consider whether to grant pay raises to California lawmakers who already receive the highest base pay of any legislators in the country, $100,113, far above second-place Pennsylvania's roughly $85,000.
Reed's proposed initiative to rein in pension costs, including a requirement for voters to approve benefits, would be the most serious attempt to address projected pension shortfalls since 2012, when Gov. Jerry Brown pushed through changes affecting future government employees.
The Legislature passed a law that orders current state employees to pay a greater share of the cost of their pension, and requiring new public employees who are not in public safety jobs to work until 67 to get full retirement benefits.
Brown said at the time that the bill was "not perfect" and that more changes may be needed in the state retirement system.
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Assemblyman Tom W. Lackey (R-Palmdale) agrees that additional action is required to make public pensions sustainable, but he defended his benefits. Lackey was 54 when he retired as a sergeant with the California Highway Patrol.
He receives an annual pension of $111,792 from the California Public Employees' Retirement System in addition to his $97,188 legislative salary. He did not accept a pay raise last year.
Lackey said the low retirement age for law enforcement officers and firefighters is justified.
"There is clearly room for improvement on the sustainability issue," Lackey said. "I do believe in my situation, law enforcement pensions deserve unique consideration just because of the danger and all the circumstances that surround that type of career."
Lackey said 56 CHP officers died in the line of duty during his 28 years with the agency. He also noted that current state lawmakers do not accrue credit for a pension.
The rules approved by Brown in 2012 apply to local public pension systems, including the one in Orange County, but the new retirement age does not affect those like Moorlach who were already employed.
He retired at age 59 just before he joined the Senate, and his retirement check is based on 19.7 years of service that included time on the Orange County Board of Supervisors and as the county treasurer.
When asked about several legislators collecting pension checks on top of salaries, Moorlach said, "It's not the people who are bad. It's the system that's bad. We've got to fix the system."
Moorlach said he warned in 2004 that the county was making a "massive mistake" by boosting retirement benefits. It went from a formula with a retirement age of 65 to one providing a share of salary payable beginning at 55.
After being told he could not opt out of the county retirement system, he abided by its rules, but he decided after retiring at 59 that he could still provide public service, he said.
"I could easily have retired at age 60, but I had a lot of my friends who said, 'We still want you involved, we want you to run.' I did it for public service," Moorlach said, adding that he agrees that the current system encourages public officials to retire early.
His acceptance of a county retirement check and a state paycheck also concerned one of his allies, Marcia Fritz, president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, which has pressed for pension reform.
"That doesn't look good," Fritz said. "I hate to say this publicly about John, but it's double-dipping."
Fritz, who advised Brown's office on his 2012 plan, said one solution to the problem would be to adopt rules similar to Social Security, which reduces retirement pay if the person goes back to work and earns more than a small amount.
"Something like that would be reasonable," she said. "We should do what we can to discourage people from retiring too soon."
State legislators are paid $100,113 annually but many receive government pension checks at the same time, including:
Assemblyman Jim Cooper (D-Elk Grove)
Assemblyman Jim Cooper, left, checks out Assemblyman Ian C. Calderons cellphone during a hearing session at the Capitol on July 7, 2015. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Annual public pension: $173,820
Government service: Cooper retired two years ago at age 50 as a captain with the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department.
Biographical details: He is former chairman of the Assembly Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security Committee.
Sen. Jean Fuller (R-Bakersfield)
State senator Jean Fuller makes a statement during the Senate session at the Statehouse Capitol, in Sacramento, Calif., on July 9, 2015. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Annual public pension: $112,980
Government service: Fuller spent 30 years in public education and was superintendent of the Keppel Union School District.
Biographical details: She is the Senate Republican leader and is vice chairwoman of the Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee. Fuller is also a member of the Senate Public Employment and Retirement Committee.
Assemblyman Tom W. Lackey (R-Palmdale)
SACRAMENTO, CALIF. -- WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2016: Assembly member Tom Lackey during California State Assembly Committee on Budget in Sacramento, Calif., on Jan. 20, 2016. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Annual public pension: $111,792
Government service: Lackey retired at age 54 as a sergeant with the California Highway Patrol.
Biographical details: He did not accept a pay raise last year, so he receives a Senate salary of $97,188. Lackey is vice chairman of the Assembly Committee on Accountability and Administrative Review.
Assemblywoman Shirley Weber (D-San Diego)
Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, called on lawmakers to approve her resolution calling for a ban on the display of Confederate flags on federal property and state capitols, Monday, Aug. 17, 2015, in Sacramento,Calif. The Assembly unanimously approved the measure, AJR26, with 74 votes. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (Rich Pedroncelli / AP)
Annual public pension: $103,000
Government service: Weber taught at California State L.A. and Los Angeles City College. She was also a professor at San Diego State.
Biographical details: She spent decades in higher education and has spent her time in the Assembly serving on the Appropriations, Budget, Education and Higher Education committees among others.
Sen. John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa)
Former Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach declared victory Thursday in the race for a state Senate seat. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)
Annual public pension: $83,827
Government service: Former Orange County treasurer and member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors with a total of about 19 years of county service.
Biographical details: An outspoken critic of unsustainable pension benefits, Moorlach is a member of the Senate Public Employment and Retirement Committee. He is vice chairman of the Judiciary Committee and serves on the Budget and Fiscal Review and Governance and Finance committees.
Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-South Los Angeles)
Lobbyists hand Assemblyman Reginald Jones-Sawyer, D-Los Angeles, center, information about legislation they are concerned about as he enters the Assembly chambers at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, Sept. 12, 2013. Lobbyist and advocates are working the halls to try to sway lawmakers votes about bills before the Legislature. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) ** Usable by LA and DC Only ** (Rich Pedroncelli / AP)
Annual public pension: $83,544
Government service: Jones-Sawyer worked for the city of Los Angeles in roles including director of asset management and assistant deputy mayor.
Biographical details: He is chairman of the Public Safety Committee and serves on the Higher Education, Government Organization and Agriculture committees. He is the former chairman of the Los Angeles County Small Business Commission.
Assemblyman Jose Medina (D-Riverside)
In this photo taken Monday, Feb. 11, 2013, Assemblyman Jose Medina, D-Riverside, speaks before the Assembly at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (Rich Pedroncelli / AP)
Annual public pension: $63,420
Government service: Medina retired in 2012 after many years as a teacher with the Riverside Unified School District.
Biographical details: He was a school board member on the Jurupa Unified School District Board of Education and completed three terms on the Riverside Community College District Board of Trustees. Medina is chairman of the Assembly Committee on Higher Education.
Sen. Marty Block (D-San Diego)
FILE - In this Sept. 10, 2015 file photo, state Sen. Marty Block, D-San Diego, right, talks with Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. Block announced, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, that he would not seek re-election amid a high-profile challenge from fellow Democrat Toni Atkins, the Assembly Speaker. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli,file) (Rich Pedroncelli / AP)
Annual public pension: $59,481
Government service: Block served as a dean, professor and legal advisor at San Diego State.
Biographical details: He served as a San Diego Superior Court judge pro tem and statewide president of the California County Boards of Education. He chairs the Senate Education Budget Subcommittee, the Committee on Banking and Financial Institutions and the Legislative Jewish Caucus.
Assemblyman Richard Gordon (D-Menlo Park)
Assemblyman Rich Gordon, DnMenlo Park after a pension reform bill was approved by the Assembly at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Friday, Aug. 31, 2012. The measure, AB340, a sweeping pension compromise plan negotiated by Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders, was approved by a 49n8 vote. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (Rich Pedroncelli / AP)
Annual public pension: $51,293
Government service: He spent 13 years on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, which was a full-time job with benefits.
Biographical details: Gordon chairs the Assembly's Committee on Rules and serves on the Budget committee.
Sen. Richard Roth (D-Riverside)
In this photo taken Monday, Feb. 11, 2013, state Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, addresses the state Senate at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (Rich Pedroncelli / AP)
Annual public pension: $45,566
Government service: Roth is a former major general in the U.S. Air Force.
Biographical details: Roth has turned down pay increases in his Senate salary since his election, so he receives $90,540 annually. He is chairman of the Senate Budget Subcommittee on State Administration and General Government, and the Insurance Committee. He is vice-chairman of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.
Sen. James Beall (D-San Jose)
Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, urged lawmakers to approve his measure, known as Audries Law, that would make it easier to prosecute juveniles, who sexually assault unconscious victims as adults, at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Tuesday, April 29, 2014. The Senate Public Safety Committee approved SB838 that was named after Audrie Pott, a 15-year-old Saratoga High School student who committed suicide days after she was sexually assaulted while unconscious by three male classmates and had photos of her half nude body posted on line. The bill also includes a cyberbullying statute that would make it a felony to share obscene or sexual photos of young people or their body parts on social media or smartphones to harass or bully them.(AP Photo) (AP)
Annual public pension: $40,320
Government service: Beall is a former member of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors and former urban planner for the cities of Santa Cruz and Los Gatos.
Biographical details: He is chairman of the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee, and is a member of the Public Employment and Retirement; Appropriations; Budget and Fiscal Review; and Governance and Finance committees. He also sits on the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.
Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills)
SACRAMENTO, CALIF. -- THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 2016: California State Senator Fran Pavley, left, during a joint session of the California Legislature for Governor Browns State of the State speech in Sacramento, Calif., on Jan. 21, 2016. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Annual public pension: $19,140
Government service: Pavley taught in public schools for more than two decades, completing her teaching career in Moorpark before she retired in July 2004.
Biographical details: She is the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee chairwoman, and serves on committees including Budget and Fiscal Review and Governance and Finance. She was also mayor of Agoura Hills.
Assemblyman Kansen Chu (D-San Jose)
Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, is congratulated by Kansen Chu, D-San Jose, after her bill to give double-time for working on Thanksgiving, was approved by the Assembly, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (Rich Pedroncelli / AP)
Annual public pension: $18,276
Government service: He worked as an aide to legislators and served seven years on the San Jose City Council.
Biographical details: He served on the Berryessa Union School Board District and is chairman of the Assembly Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism and Internet Media committee. He also serves on the Committee on Labor and Employment and the Jobs, Economic Development and the Economy and Transportation committees.
Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis)
SACRAMENTO, CALIF. -- FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2015: Senator Lois Wolk, left, makes her opening statement as the aid-in-dying legislation is introduced on the Senate floor, in Sacramento, Calif., on Sept. 11, 2015. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Annual public pension: $11,827
Government service: Wolk served from 1998 to 2002 as an elected member of the Yolo County Board of Supervisors before retiring from county service.
Biographical details: She is Senate majority whip and is chairwoman of the Senate Budget Subcommittee and No. 2 on Resources, Environmental Protection, Energy and Transportation. Wolk is the former mayor of Davis.
Sen. Carol Liu (D-La Canada-Flintridge)
Assemblywoman Carol Liu, D-South Pasadena, presents to the Assembly her bill that would ban state contractors from offshoring jobs, at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, May 27, 2004. By a 44-26 vote the Assembly approved the measure and sent it to the Senate. (AP Photo) (Rich Pedroncelli / AP)
Annual public pension: $8,880
Government service: Liu was a teacher in Richmond public schools, teaching history at the junior and senior high levels. She became a school administrator before retiring in 1996.
Biographical details: She is chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee and serves on the Insurance, Public Safety, Human Services and Elections and Constitutional Amendments committees.
Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica)
SACRAMENTO, CALIF. -- WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2016: Assembly member Richard Bloom during California State Assembly Committee on Budget in Sacramento, Calif., on Jan. 20, 2016. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Annual public pension: $5,239
Government service: Bloom served for 13 years on the Santa Monica City Council, where he served as mayor three times.
Biographical details: He also served as a volunteer judge pro tem and mediator for Los Angeles County Superior Courts. He is a member of Assembly committees including Budget, Appropriations and Higher Education.
Assemblyman Rocky Chavez (R-Oceanside)
Assemblyman Rocky Chavez of Oceanside, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, at the California Republican Partys semi-annual convention in Anaheim this weekend. Chavez said GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trumps rhetoric on immigration is undercutting the state partys efforts to attract Latino voters. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Annual public pension: Requests made by the Times for information about Chavez's annual pension were not answered by Chavez and military representatives.
Government service: Chavez spent more than 28 years as a U.S. Marine, rising to the rank of colonel and serving as chief of staff for the 4th Marine Division.
Biographical details: He is vice chairman of the Assembly Veterans Affairs committee, and sits on the Budget and Joint Legislative Budget committees, among others.
patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com
Follow @mcgreevy99 on Twitter
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The little black dress. Haute couture. Ballet flats.
Along with these French staples from fashion houses Chanel, Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and Louis Vuitton, comes the work of accomplished designer Anne Fontaine, who is helping to foster a look that can also be interpreted as what it means to be stylish in Paris or in Orange County.
Fontaine, a Paris-based designer who was born in Brazil, is the woman behind the womenswear collection known for its iconic white shirt. Now she has expanded into outerwear, knits, handbags, jewelry and much more while adding color, albeit nothing flashy.
She took her neutral color palette to Costa Mesa on March 31, presenting models in looks that ranged from subtle floral prints and longline skirts to opulent organza blouses during an exclusive fashion show at South Coast Plaza.
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Fontaines spring/summer 2016 collection the theme is Beauty in Nature was inspired by the environment. She fixed her signature designs on elements like sunburst pleats and a mix of linen materials, creating cleanly tailored pieces in shades of blue, other seasonal colors and earthy tones.
Since childhood, Fontaine has made her own clothes, refusing to wear ready-made items since she wanted to tailor her own creative aesthetic. She decided to put forth her collection in 1993, and the next year she opened her first boutique on Paris Rue des Saints-Peres.
But long before the fashion house was born and its products would be sold in 70 boutiques around the world, Fontaine met Ari Zlotkin, her future husband. He showed Fontaine his grandmothers attic, where they found a collection of white shirts.
Fontaine felt inspired by the pieces to create an updated design for the classic white shirt.
Her business began with a concentration of white shirts in organza, silk and Pima cotton poplin from Peru, and she had the fabrics crafted by French and Italian artisans known for their tailoring and sewing expertise.
I wanted this piece, belonging to a masculine wardrobe, to become a womens essential, Fontaine said in an email. A white shirt is timeless elegance. Its an item which every woman can play with to create her own identity and express her own creativity. Nothing is sexier than a woman in a white shirt.
Each season, she conceptualizes a new vision of it in a number of styles.
The Noriana three-quarter sleeve shirt, priced at $350, features an A-line silhouette with a back that is open and accented with a bow and pleat. Theres the Naelys shirt, showcasing elaborate roserrers poofy rose-like petals on the sleeve, and the Natalia embroidered chiffon cape layered over a sleeveless Pima jersey-cloth T-shirt.
The environment has always remained a focus in Fontaines designs and charitable pursuits.
In 2011, she created the Anne Fontaine Foundation, an organization aiming to protect the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest. Known as the Mata Atlantica forest in Portuguese, it is one of the richest forests in terms of biodiversity, but it is also one of the most threatened. Today in Brazil, over 85% of the original region has been deforested, threatening plants and animals with extinction.
When looking to the future, Fontaine, who lives in Honfleur, Normandy, said that in five years, she hopes to be spending more of her time educating others about reforestation and childrens education programs.
Fashion-wise, she would like to expand the brands Les Precieuses collection, which is a limited collection of evening wear, dresses and tops with fine embroidery and delicate fabrics.
She soon will launch the AF active line, a sport chic collection for women.
Being stylish is a story of having your own look, Fontaine said. My style is timeless elegance and femininity. I translate my style into my designs, which I want to be relatable. I have a style which highlights a womans personality. Women should be able to get dressed and feel beautiful and confident without having to put in much thought.
Anne Fontaine is at South Coast Plaza, 3333 Bristol St., Costa Mesa. For more information, call (714) 549-0315 or visit annefontaine.com.
Gabriel Zavala remembers his time in the 1980s ska scene when cliques promoted division and violence was prevalent.
He remembers how hard it was to fit in back then as a good Catholic boy who, up until enrolling in Katella High School in Anaheim in the early 1980s, had only studied at religious schools.
It was during this time that he was beaten up by jocks and tried smoking pot with the metal fans just to fit in. But then Zavala, who said he was studying to become a priest, entered the Cloud 9 dance club at Knotts Berry Farm one night and his life changed forever.
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Songs like Nightboat to Cairo and Concrete Jungle, with their upbeat sounds and big-band-style horns, played overhead as teens, some dressed in sharp suits and trilby hats, danced around in a circle in a running-man motion, alternating bent-elbow fist-punches, left and right.
He learned the music was called ska, the style of dancing was called skanking and the fans were often belovedly called rude boys and rude girls. He longed to be one of them.
Zavala chronicles his adventures in this period loosely through the eyes of fictional character Rudy Gonzalez in the film Rude Boy.
The time, Zavala said, was all about dancing to the music, looking cool and meeting girls.
And while the scene has changed over the last few decades, and some may even argue that ska died with the 1990s, its quaint group of fans knows differently.
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Tensions were high in the United States in the 1980s. Unemployment was accelerating, and the Cold War was reaching its peak.
While people found different remedies to keep their spirits up, a modest group of young music fans trusted in ska, following United Kingdom-based bands like The Specials, Madness, The English Beat and The Selecter.
The upbeat songs about unity helped revive spirits as fans danced to the music in the skanking style, rode around on vespas and dressed to fit the scene and mimick the genres Jamaican founders, donning narrow-brimmed hats, Dr. Martens boots and suspenders perhaps. A lot of the clothes included black-and-white checkered patterns that are symbolic of the multiracial makeup of the early ska bands, said Heather Augustyn, who has written four books on the genre, including Ska: An Oral History.
They were dressing like the subculture that started in the U.K., and that style of dress came from [Jamaican musician] Desmond Dekker and the way they dressed in Jamaica, said the 43-year-old author from Indiana. And ska and dance always intertwined.
She said ska music, which included big horn sections of eight to 12 pieces in its early days, trailed the jazz big band era and people were looking for signs of hope.
The upbeat music was medicinal, Augustyn said. You just cant be sad while listening to ska.
In Jamaica, where the genre started in the early 1960s in Kingston, the music provided happiness for the country, which had just won its independence from the United Kingdom, Augustyn said.
She said the young people of Jamaica, often referred to as rude boys, were sometimes struggling to find work and make something of themselves. They were essentially early gangsters who favored sharp suits and sunglasses, she said.
In England, where the music arrived in the years following the Western Indian immigration after World War II, the area was experiencing stifling poverty, Augustyn said. Bands like The Specials, which combined Jamaican ska with punk influences, wrote songs like Ghost Town to reflect the period.
And in the United States, when the English ska groups hit the alternative airwaves in the 80s, the music spoke to youngsters there too.
It wasnt such a bad time here in the U.S., but there was still a need for people to feel better, Augustyn said.
Ska bands with faster sounds began sprouting up in the country, especially on the West Coast. Los Angeles groups like Fishbone and the Untouchables in the 80s would later inspire the installations of 90s Orange County-based outfits like No Doubt, Reel Big Fish, The Aquabats and Save Ferris.
The horns, tempo and mood [in Orange County ska] are upbeat and cheerful, as is most ska, Augustyn said. O.C. ska blended these sounds with some punk influences as well. Though we may not hear the sounds of O.C.punk bands like Social Distortion or T.S.O.L or the Vandals, that rebellious anti-establishment sensibility is still there. It manifests in O.C. ska as frivolity rather than anger.
O.C. ska features themes of youth and drinking and relationships and selling out to become successful, but it also could feature more substantial concepts like racial unity and friendship. Even serious subjects like date rape and prostitution are combined with skas upbeat tone and tempo, as was typical of ska from all eras.
She said she thinks Orange County ska fans were attracted to and have remained loyal to the genre because of the original two-tone sound, a late-1970s ska revival in the United Kingdom.
It was fun, she said. It was interactive music. It was upbeat and after the arena rock of the 80s like Bon Jovi and Journey, people were looking for something free of heavy guitar licks and ballads. The horns were different and added a whole other dimension to the punk tempo and mentality. It was pure and simple fun.
The Gwen Stefani-fronted, platinum-selling, Anaheim-based group No Doubt had its beginnings in ska. The band then moved into pop and dancehall, a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s.
According to Eric Stefani, founding member of No doubt and brother of Gwen, the ska scenes in the United States and England differed.
Originally in England, the music and the dress united a lot of people of all races, he said. It didnt translate the same in America but we tried our best.... Our band played with Untouchables, Fishbone, Donkey Show and Skeletones. These bands were more pure ska than us.
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Rude Boy director Gabriel Zavala and his brother, Oliver Zavala, co-writer, said one of the big messages they hope to portray through the film which is being screened April 16 at the Frida Cinema in Santa Ana is that the racism that was once prevalent in Anaheim is still around today.
In February, three people were stabbed and 13 others were arrested when a Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim erupted in violence. Klansmen were once the dominant political force in Anaheim, holding four of five City Council seats before a recall effort led to their ouster in 1924, according to the Los Angeles Times.
We were the third Mexican family in Anaheim at the time, said Gabriel Zavala, 48, referring to the 1980s. I kind of got numb to what the racism was when we were growing up. I didnt think it was that way in Anaheim anymore and then bam, in the last couple months, they have the KKK in Anaheim and all of a sudden all these themes and music in the film now are becoming relevant. Things havent changed that much.
Oliver Zavala said while all ska fans would appreciate the film which cost about $10,000 to make and features ska songs from the 1980s as well as original music its pretty much tailor-made for those who were around in 1980s Orange County.
During the time, cliques from different music genres would clash, racism was rife and violence could often ensue when people disagreed.
It was a lot different than third wave ska, which was around in the 90s and even today, said the 43-year-old, who performed with the popular 90s ska group Save Ferris, which has since disbanded, and co-wrote original songs for the film with Clinton Calton of the punk band D.I.
A lot of people think the ska scene was a certain way, and we wanted to show how it really was. It was much more serious to be involved in that scene. It was almost like a gang in a sort of way but not so dangerous.
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Today, the scene isnt nearly as aggressive, and the genre has broken off into sub-groups with pop and punk influences.
Ska fans around the world flock to events like the annual Ska Luau headlined by Starpool, in which Oliver Zavala plays trumpet, and concerts with bands like Reel Big Fish, Suburban Legends, The Aquabats, Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Big D and the Kids Table.
And while the vespas and violence are not really prevalent anymore, skanking is still popular at shows.
In Orange County in particular which has had its own ska radio show, the Ska Parade, since 1989 the scene is something many fans refer to as their ska family.
The group even held the first Skacademy Awards earlier this year in Anaheim, where fans battled in categories like Biggest Ska Nerd, Best Dressed Skanker and Ska Band We Wish Would Come Back Already.
Thousands of rude boys and rude girls have also flocked to Disneyland for a fan-made group meet-up called Its a Ska World After All, which was last held in 2014.
Its tight-knit because most everyone in it joins in their teenage years, said Evan Wohrman, who sings in Orange County-based ska band Hooray for Our Side. Youre into a style of music and scene that is not as visible or mainstream as what your peers may be listening to. When you find this group of people who share your not-so-mainstream musical tastes, youre going to form a stronger bond with them. Youre going to make lifelong friends at shows. Being part of it for so long has been such a positive force in my life.
The ska communities in the 1980s and 90s were just as dedicated.
Brian Mashburn, guitarist in Starpool and Save Ferris, said ska fans in those days would flock to venues across Southern California because of the lack of places in Orange County.
We used to pile in an old station wagon or someones van and go all over So Cal to catch a good show, he said. Skeletones and Voodoo [Glow Skulls] at UC Redlands? Lets go! Hepcat at Las Palmas Theatre in L.A? Were there! Buck-O-Nine at SOMA in San Diego? OK, here we go! Kids didnt care about driving all over. It was cool because you would meet people and make friends with groups of ska fans from all over.
Gabriel Zavala said ska music still helps him through rough patches in his life.
During the editing of the film, he was hit with a divorce, but the work kept him distracted and the music kept him uplifted.
The thing about ska music, for me, is that when Ive hit those rough patches and Ive been blue, I put on ska music and it makes me feel better, he said. It just does this wonderful thing to me. Thats a feeling that I never want to let go of.
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IF YOU GO
What: Rude Boy
Where: Frida Cinema, 305 E. 4th St., Santa Ana
When: 9:30 p.m. April 16
Cost: Tickets are $10
Information: thefridacinema.org; (714) 285-9422
A fireworks storeroom at a temple in southern India exploded during a religious ceremony early Sunday, enveloping the temple in flames and white smoke and leaving more than 100 people dead, officials said.
More than 350 people were injured in the explosion and health officials said the death toll could rise.
Several thousand people had gathered inside the complex of the Paravur Puttingal Devi temple in the southern state of Kerala to watch a fireworks show when a nearby building where additional firecrackers were being stored caught fire. Officials said early reports indicated the explosion occurred when sparks from the fireworks on display landed on the storehouse.
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Chunks of concrete were sent flying for several hundred yards, witnesses said. Many victims lost limbs and eyes and were airlifted to hospitals across Kerala. The temple is located in Kollam, about 40 miles from the state capital, Thiruvananthapuram.
Many have sustained burns of over 50% [of their bodies] and the condition of some of them are quite serious, D. Mohandas, the superintendent of Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital, told The Hindu newspaper.
Officials said temple authorities had not obtained permission for the fireworks display and pledged to press charges against those responsible, according to Indian media reports. Firecrackers, including many crude models set off by hand, are a staple of Indian festivals and routinely cause injuries to eyes and other parts of the body, especially among children.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the fire was shocking beyond words and flew to Kerala to assess the damage.
C.R. Neelakandan, a local political activist, blamed the fire on basic negligence.
Earlier, this festival used to happen in open spaces. They should have taken proper proactive measures, Neelakandan said.
A similar festival is coming up in a weeks time. It seems these rituals have always gone ahead without proper prior assessment.
Pyrotechnics at temples are reportedly banned in Kollam but temples routinely obtain waivers to set off fireworks at religious ceremonies.
Modi said the government would provide cash payments of about $3,000 to the families of those killed.
Parth M.N. is a special correspondent.
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Shizuo Kakutani sees no great mystery in the things that wash ashore in Monzen, his quiet fishing village on the Sea of Japan the fishing boats ravaged by fierce winter storms, the Chinese garbage carried to land by the strong winds, the occasional body that drifts in from Yaseno, the nearby cliffs notorious for suicides.
The ghost ships, however, are harder to explain.
On an early morning in November, the 71-year-old retired fisherman received a call from his colleagues at the towns civilian coast guard. A black mass bobbling in the water most likely a boat had been spotted hooked to a distant buoy.
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When I saw the boat, I immediately knew that it was from North Korea, Kakutani said. He had seen similar vessels before no more than 30 feet long, made of wood, its flat-bottomed hull covered in black tar.
Then, as we were pulling the boat to this port, we noticed a pair of legs sticking out from underneath, bobbing up and down with the waves, Kakutani said. Later that day, they discovered two more boats and a grisly cargo of 10 bodies, all badly decomposed.
In small towns along Japans sleepy west coast, dozens of North Korean boats drift ashore each year and while most arrive empty or reduced to kindling, some float eerily out of the haze with a crew of bodies, adding to the mystery of a country that cloaks itself in secrecy.
A flotilla of the ghost boats at least 14 of them, carrying more than 30 decomposing corpses has washed ashore since late last year along a 1,000-mile stretch of the west coast, leaving Japanese investigators puzzled. Who were these people? What happened to them?
The boats bore unmistakable signs of North Korean origin. Their hulls were emblazoned with painted numbers and Korean script; one was marked State Security Department, and another Korean Peoples Army. A tattered North Korean flag flew from one of the boats, the newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported. A backpack, found on another, had a pin bearing the portrait of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who died in 2011.
All of those on board appeared to be male, though some were so badly decomposed investigators couldnt be certain. All wore civilian clothing. Autopsies found that they had been dead for about two months, but the cause of death was elusive.
Perhaps they were defectors, analysts surmised although scores of have attempted to flee the country in recent years, few have dared to cross the freezing, storm-tossed sea. Most travel overland into northeastern China.
Then, a new theory surfaced.
Satoru Miyamoto, a North Korea expert at Japans Seigakuin University near Tokyo, said that the men on board were probably fishermen. By studying photographs of the boats and the vessels numbers, he deduced they probably belonged to the North Korean militarys commercial branch.
The basis for those conclusions might be found in a series of undated photographs released in November of dictator Kim Jong Un touring a military fishery base, grinning and examining blocks of frozen fish.
Workers, Kim said, should realize their lifetime desire by catching more fish for the servicepersons and civilians, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
So the military has been sending soldiers out onto the sea to fish, Miyamoto said. But the soldiers dont have any training, so they sometimes get lost at sea.
The crews may have run into extreme weather, a typhoon perhaps. Boats may have flipped and righted themselves again. Those aboard probably drowned, starved or succumbed to hypothermia.
A search of the boat Kakutani helped bring to shore in November revealed what must have been a wretched existence for those on board.
There were so few things in there, said Kiyohito Tani, 52, a coast guard group leader who conducted the search.
There was a frying pan and a cabin strewn with fishing hooks and small lights, suggesting the crew intended to catch squid, he said. There were three bodies below deck, all decomposed.
It smelled like them, he said. Its something very difficult to describe.
Six more bodies were found in one of the other two boats that were found that day, one of the vessels with only its hull protruding from the water.
This isnt something new for us, so people are just saying oh no, not again. Shizuo Kakutani, 71
Kakutani was more mystified than alarmed by the ghost ships; the fishing town has long been awash in macabre discoveries.
This isnt something new for us, so people are just saying oh no, not again, Kakutani said.
Kakutani said that responding to suicides on nearby Yaseno five or six each year has hardened him.
We have a rumor of a ghostly figure of a lady appearing at the pier, he said. But thats been a rumor since way before the North Korean ships began arriving. So probably, shes just one of those people who jumped to death from the cliff.
And the arrivals have continued. In January, fishermen in Niigata found a small boat apparently from North Korea partially submerged about eight miles from the citys coastline. It remains in the citys port awaiting demolition, with all of its contents: fishing nets, a mans jacket, a rusty old motor.
Kazushi Nishikata, 37, a spokesman at the Niigata coast guard, said investigators found a pack of cigarettes bearing Korean script on board.
I remember it was whitish-colored, he said in an interview at his office. He then left the room to find a picture of the cigarette pack, but returned empty-handed. A body was just found in a river near here, he said, shrugging. Everybodys busy checking it out. So I cant look into this right now.
Coast guard officials said that disposing of the boats has been a bureaucratic hassle. The three boats discovered off Monzen floated unattended for months before they were dismantled, destroyed and incinerated in February. Wajima, the municipality that oversees the town of Monzen, couldnt afford their disposal, leaving the local environmental ministry to cover most of the $13,500 bill.
A Wajima government spokesperson, reached by phone, said those aboard, presumed to be North Koreans, were cremated and their ashes sent to the Soujiji temple, a placid Zen Buddhist compound on the citys outskirts. A monk at the temple confirmed that the ashes were there, but declined to say more commenting on the situation, he said, could invite reprisals.
Between 1977 and 1983, North Korean agents abducted at least 17 Japanese citizens including several who lived nearby. Some locals, he said, still seek retribution.
Theyre being held no differently than the other ashes, the monk said. In death, we treat everyone the same.
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The Belgium-based militants who killed 32 people in twin attacks in Brussels last month had originally planned to launch another assault in France, as a follow-up to the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead. But they abruptly changed their plans, deciding to instead strike closer to home, as investigators were closing in on the remains of the terror cell, Belgiums federal prosecutors office said on Sunday.
Numerous elements in the investigation have shown that the terrorist group initially had the intention to strike in France again, the Belgian prosecutors office said in a statement. Eventually, surprised by the speed of progress in the investigation, they took the decision to strike in Brussels.
French prosecutors had said they believed the terrorists were planning to attack La Defense, a major business district in the Paris metropolitan area where many thousands of people work in the headquarters of some of Frances leading companies and multinational firms.
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The revelation came days after police in Belgium arrested a chief suspect wanted in both the Paris and Brussels attacks. Mohamed Abrini was arrested in a raid on Friday in Brussels and charged Saturday with terrorist murder and belonging to a terror organization. He admitted to being the third bombing suspect caught on surveillance footage at the Brussels airport, known in the media as the man in the hat, authorities said.
The two other men who appear on the surveillance video next to Abrini, pushing luggage trolleys laden with explosives, died detonating their bombs at the airport.
Abrini, a 31-year-old Belgian national of Moroccan origin, fled the airport just before the bombs blew up, authorities said. He was later seen on surveillance videos walking away from the airport into the city.
Police officers take part in an operation in Brussels after a deadly terrorist attack in late March. (Nicolas Maeterlinck / AFP/Getty Images)
Abrinis arrest and the swift confirmation that he was the third suspect in the Brussels airport bombing represented a major breakthrough for Belgiums beleaguered security services, and was hailed as a positive development by Prime Minister Charles Michel.
Three other suspects arrested Friday in Brussels were charged with being part of a terrorist organization. Prosecutors did not release the full names of the other men who were charged, identifying them only as Herve B.M., a Rwandan national; Bilal E.M.; and Osama K. Belgian media reported that Osama K. is a Swedish national, and is believed to have appeared on security footage at the Brussels subway before the explosion there.
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FOR THE RECORD:
April 10, 3:55 p.m.: An earlier version of this article said that Belgian media identified Osama K. as a Swiss national. They identified him as a Swedish national.
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Another prime suspect in the Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, was arrested in Brussels following a shootout with police on March 18, days before the Brussels bombings. Abdeslam grew up in Belgium, and French prosecutors said he had planned to detonate a suicide bomb at Paris Stade de France on Nov. 13 but backed out at the last minute and fled.
Investigators believe the capture of Abdeslam, dubbed Europes most wanted man at the time, forced the Brussels cell to set its sights on Belgium and accelerate the timing of the attack. The attackers struck four days after Abdeslams arrest.
The dual March 22 bombings at the airport and a busy subway station have shaken Europes confidence in its ability to thwart terrorism. Belgian security services have come under fire for failing to neutralize the Brussels terror cell after the attacks in Paris. Most of the participants of the Paris attacks were later identified as Belgian nationals or French citizens who had lived in Belgium, where the attacks were believed to have been planned.
More than 400 Belgian citizens have gone to fight in Syria, according to official estimates, the highest per-capita number among European nations. Authorities estimate that more than 100 returned to Belgium. Europe has not made widespread changes to how intelligence is shared, and the attacks in Paris and Brussels have renewed calls for greater cooperation and intelligence sharing in fighting terrorist networks.
In Germany, Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of the countrys domestic BfV intelligence agency said Sunday that Islamic State wants to carry out attacks in Germany and called the security situation extremely serious.
Maassen told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that Islamic State propaganda was aimed at encouraging supporters to launch attacks in Germany, which has so far been fortunate to have not been attacked. About one-third of the 800 German citizens who traveled to Syrian and northern Iraq in recent years have returned, according to the newspaper.
Kirschbaum is a special correspondent.
Initially, an Egyptian police official said Giulio Regenis death was a result of a road accident.
On Feb. 3 the badly bruised body of Regeni, a 28-year-old doctoral student from Italy, was found on the side of a highway outside Cairo. Regeni, who had been researching labor unions, had disappeared Jan. 25, on the anniversary of the Tahrir Square protests that convulsed Egypt five years ago.
The road accident story was quickly swept aside. Both Egyptian and Italian forensics found that Regenis body showed signs of torture that included beating and electric shocks to his genitals. His mother would later say at a news conference that she recognized her son only by the tip of his nose when she saw him in a Rome morgue.
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Then in March, Egypts Foreign Ministry announced a breakthrough in the case, saying Regeni was killed by a mob of criminals impersonating police officers to rob foreigners. According to the ministry, some of Regenis belongings were found in the home of one of the gang members, who were all allegedly shot by Egyptian police in an exchange of gunfire.
The ministrys claim was widely ridiculed in Italy and tensions between the two countries grew, with Italy recalling its ambassador from Egypt for consultations over the matter. This followed the Italian Foreign Ministrys threat to adopt immediate and proportional measures if Egyptian investigators failed to unveil solid facts regarding the case.
On Saturday in Cairo, Egypts deputy prosecutor refused to reveal details of the investigations into the death of Regeni.
We wont be discussing any facts because investigations are still ongoing. According to the law, investigations should be kept in secrecy until the probe is officially concluded, deputy prosecutor Mustafa Soliman said.
Soliman was part of an Egyptian delegation that made a two-day trip to Rome on Thursday, during which the Egyptians informed Italian authorities of the latest developments in the case. At the meeting in Rome, the Egyptians stuck by claims that Mr. Regeni was kidnapped and killed by a gang of criminals in Cairo.
A friend of Regeni in Egypt, who asked for anonymity for fear of reprisal, said, What we know for sure is that Giulio was arrested by a number of police officers ... when he was walking from his home to a nearby metro station to meet another friend downtown Cairo.
Autopsy showed that his body was tortured to death in the same way many Egyptian dissidents usually face, he added.
In a statement Friday, Italian investigators said the Egyptians had handed over the cellphone records of two friends of Regeni who were in Cairo in January, and a crime scene report with photos of the roadside where his body was found.
The chief Italian prosecutor reiterated his conviction that there are no elements to directly link the gang to the torture and death of Giulio Regeni, prosecutors said in a statement.
Responding to the scant information handed over, the Italian Foreign Ministry stated, On the basis of these developments, an urgent evaluation is required of the most opportune initiatives to relaunch the commitment needed to find the truth about the barbarous killing of Regeni.
According to Soliman, Italian investigators have called on Egyptians to provide CCTV security footage of the street where Regeni disappeared, as well as records of all cellphone traffic in the area where Regeni is believed to have been taken and the area where his body was found.
For technical reasons, CCTV footage is automatically erased. We even contacted the smart cameras manufacturing company and they informed us that they cannot retrieve the erased footage, but we acquired a special software that might enable us to retain the footage, Soliman told reporters.
The other [Italian] request which is a point of disagreement is the full phone call records such demand contradicts with Egypts Constitution and Egyptian laws, he said.
Italian investigators are reportedly hoping to match phone records with the two locations to find a suspect who may have been involved in both seizing the student and dumping his body.
If I can speak for [Regenis] friends, we are outraged by the nonstop lies and coverups in the last two months in Egypt. Paz Zarate, attorney
On Saturday, Italian press agency ANSA reported that chief Italian prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatone would send a new, formal request to Egypt for the cellphone records of 10 suspects.
The rapidity of the Italian response to the failed meetings points to Italys determination to be firm.
Italy is a major commercial partner of Egypt, and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has carefully built a relationship with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi, but outraged Italian public opinion has left him little room for vacillation.
Italians have staged protests demanding justice for Regeni, who had been pursuing his doctorate at Cambridge University in England. The country has also been impressed by the courage of Regenis mother, Paola Regeni, who said during a news conference last month that she will be able to cry for her son only after his killers are caught.
A friend of Regeni said Saturday that Italys recall of its ambassador showed Rome was set to keep up the pressure on Egypt.
Italy does not have a tradition of protecting its citizens abroad, so this is an important step, said Paz Zarate, a Chilean attorney who specializes in international law. For the foreign minister to speak of countermeasures is a departure from tradition.
Zarate acted as a mentor to Regeni when they worked together at the Oxford Analytica think tank in England in 2014. She befriended him and encouraged him to study at Cambridge.
If I can speak for his friends, we are outraged by the nonstop lies and coverups in the last two months in Egypt. It is really important that the West looks at Sisis human rights record very closely.
In a report last week, the UK Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee singled out the Regeni case as an example of the British Foreign Offices scant regard for human rights around the world.
We feel that overall the UK has not been supporting the Italian authorities as forcefully as [Regenis] murder deserved, the report stated.
On March 10, the European Parliament voted for a resolution that called for Regenis killers to be found and denounced alleged human rights violations in Egypt.
The Regeni case has highlighted criticism of Egypts human rights record under Sisis rule. Thousands of political dissidents are jailed while hundreds have reportedly died in police custody or faced forced disappearances since the army-led ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
Hassan and Kington are special correspondents. Hassan reported from Cairo and Kington from Rome.
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Fallout from corruption scandals continued to roil Europe on Sunday, as Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk announced that he would resign amid a growing political crisis.
His resignation came at a time when the countrys president, Petro Poroshenko, is under scrutiny after the Panama Papers suggested that he used an undisclosed offshore company to avoid taxes. Meanwhile, in Russia, one of the key figures named in the Panama Papers deflected accusations that he had helped enrich President Vladimir Putins inner circle through offshore deals.
In televised remarks, Yatsenyuk urged Ukraines political establishment to focus on pushing for long-needed reforms instead of chasing him out of office.
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My decision is based on several reasons, Yatsenyuk said in his weekly television address. The political crisis in the government has been artificially created, the desire to change one person has blinded politicians and paralyzed their will to bring about real changes in the country.
Yatsenyuk, whose government came to power in 2014 following a popular uprising that ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, promised to fight endemic corruption and lead reforms, but has been increasingly criticized over cronyism and graft.
He said he would be replaced by parliament speaker Volodymyr Groysman and vowed to concentrate on forming a new ruling coalition that would start the disbursement of a $17.5-billion aid package from the International Monetary Fund.
Ukraines economy has been in freefall after years of political crises, Russias annexation of Crimea and the hostilities in the pro-Moscow eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The appearance of Poroshenkos name in the leaked Panama Papers documents only added to the political turmoil this month. Ukraines richest man came into office lambasting corruption and the shady deals of Ukraines oligarchs, but the documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca showed that he stashed hundreds of millions in offshore accounts.
In neighboring Russia, the Kremlin tried to whitewash the image of Putins best friend, a low-profile cellist whose name unexpectedly came up in the Panama Papers, and claimed that the U.S. State Department and the National Security Agency orchestrated the leak.
Sergei Roldugin is believed to own three companies that hid some $2 billion in offshore accounts, according to a string of investigative reports based on the leaked files.
In an interview with a state-owned Russian television station broadcast on Sunday, Roldugin said that he owns a business that helps him finance scholarships for young musicians and buy expensive musical instruments to donate to the state.
I am glad I was hit by the Panama Papers allegations, the stern-faced 64-year-old told the Vesti television channel while standing in an opulent hall of a czarist-era palace that his business helped restore. There is nothing to catch. Everything is in the open. I am richer I own Russias talents, he said.
He said he has known Putin since the late 1970s and was a godfather to his elder daughter, Maria.
The show aired footage of Putin saying Friday that Roldugin was a minority shareholder in one of our companies and earns some money.
This is, of course, not billions of dollars, thats nonsense, nothing of the kind. [But he] earned some, Putin told a news conference. I am proud to have people like Sergei Pavlovich [Roldugin] among my friends.... Almost all of the money he earned he spent to purchase musical instruments that he brought to Russia.
The news show framed the Panama Papers leak as an American-orchestrated conspiracy, in line with how it has been presented in dozens of reports on Russian national television as an attempt by Putins critics, the liberal opposition, Ukrainian politicians and other foes of the Kremlin to weaken Russia.
Anchor Andrey Kondrashov suggested that the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an international consortium of investigative reporters given access to the Panama Papers, was backed by U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, the State Department and the NSA.
During a [political] standstill, Americans in search of compromising materials on Putin were desperate to bite, at least, St. Petersburg, the city where Putin was born, where he, apparently, had his children baptized and where, of course, he has so many friends, Kondrashov said. The State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development spent $65.4 million in 2015 to support the freedom of information and independent media worldwide, and OCCRP was one of the recipients of the money, Kondrashov asserted.
The NSA, the National Security Agency, is supplying materials for the information sewage of this nesting doll, he said.
The broadcast ended with a complicated explanation of how Russian special services purportedly had to use offshore accounts in 2008 to buy a Russian telecom company that U.S. investors had been desperate to purchase in order to gain more clout in Russian media and counter the Kremlins messages.
After the Americans failed to buy the telecom company, Kondrashov claimed, they concocted the Panama Papers scandal in order to explain their failure. He ended the show with the conclusion that the CIA worked badly and messed with the wrong guys.
Mirovalev is a special correspondent.
There is a cancer within the United Nationsa term employed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon himselfand it must be cut out. I dont repeat this lightly, especially not as one of the organizations chief advocates.
Despite Bans commitment to a zero- tolerance policy against sexual exploitation by the U.N.'s own personnel, a scourge of abuse continues, with recent reports detailing a new wave of nightmarish allegations against U.N. and French peacekeepers.
Its maddening that a few bad cells threaten the system. On the whole, the U.N. is a healthy body, literally sustaining life around the globe through its work providing food, vaccines, shelter, and security to millions. And every day, peacekeepers are accomplishing remarkable feats, stabilizing countries on the brink of collapse, as in the Central African Republic (CAR), or sheltering civilians from rebel attacks in fragile states such as South Sudan.
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Yet, when even one peacekeeper violates a civilian, it also violates the trust of the institution and the international community. If the U.N. is to extricate the bad actorswhether they hail from France or the developing world militaries that are backbone of U.N. peacekeepingit must show that new policies will be implemented with unshakable resolve.
This month, the secretary-general took dramatic steps to name and shame the nations whose troops are accused of abuses. Additionally, he has suspended payments to troop-contributing countries wherever there is a credible allegation against one of its troops. These actions are necessary and the right thing to do.
The Security Council rightly backed up these efforts in adopting its first-ever resolution specifically aimed at sexual exploitation and abuse. The measure, which was championed by the U.S., endorses key parts of the secretary-generals reform agenda, including his important decision to repatriate entire military or police contingents to their home countries when there is evidence of widespread or systemic abuse. Ejecting a country for its troops sexual abuse and exploitation has remarkably only happened once before earlier this year in Central African Republic with troops from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
These new measures are crucial for the new policies to have lasting effect, but they will mean nothing unless they are actively and continually reinforced -- a posture which will anger some troop-contributing countries. Sending home offending contingents is not only a black eye on the global stage, but a loss in important revenue to that contributing nation. Frankly, that is as it should be.
Further, for those countries where there is evidence of widespread or systemic sexual exploitation and abuse, they should also be blocked from joining new missions. That is, the U.N. must say no on deployment until demonstrable progress is made. The secretary-general has the power to do that he must wield it, and the Security Council must back him.
There are certain to be consequences. One year from now, for example, the Security Council may choose to intervene in a country facing crisis. With lives on the line, the international community will look to the U.N. to act quickly and, potentially, deploy peacekeepers. If similar to recent past crises like those in the Central African Republic and Mali, only a few countries will offer troops, and of those, some will have checkered human rights records. While there will be justifiable demands to deploy a robust force, the U.N. must hold firm and reject any nation with a record of widespread or systemic abuse.
Musenu Tshilayi, standing second from the right, a Congolese major sergeant accused of rape and violation of instructions, stands at the Military Tribunal of Kinshasa during the trial of Congolese MINUSCA (United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic) soldiers on April 4, 2016. The trial against Congolese peacekeepers in the U.N. Mission in the Central African Republic involves 22 Congolese soldiers accused of rape-related violations. (EDUARDO SOTERAS / AFP/Getty Images)
At the same time, this does not mean that the international community should accept a weak response to conflict and mass atrocities. Rather, we must demand that more countries shoulder the load.
As it stands, there is not an abundance of well-trained troops for a growing number of increasingly complex, dangerous missions. Over the last 20 years, many Western nations have retreated from providing troops for U.N. combat operations. For example, last year, European Union governments provided some 6,000 troops to peacekeeping missionsabout 6% of the more than 100,000 troops totalcompared to 25,000 troops, or 40%, two decades ago. The U.S. provides even fewer: In 1996, 759 Americans served as uniformed personnel in U.N. missions; today, that number is 71.
The void caused by developed countries retreat from peacekeeping is largely being filled by developing countries, with the great majority serving honorably. That being said, they also often do not have the same level of training as troops and police from developed countries in North America and Europe. If peacekeeping is to ultimately free itself from the scourge of sexual abuse, the responsibility must not sit with the U.N. alone; other member states, especially those that can provide well-trained vetted troops who are prepared for hostile environments need to answer the bell.
To its credit, the U.S. took some decisive steps to improve this dynamic in chairing a U.N. peacekeeping summit last fall. The summit resulted in pledges of 40,000 more peacekeepers from a diverse pool of countries. Ensuring those pledges materialize and that troops deploy to places like the Central African Republic and Mali will be instrumental in backing up the U.N.s denial of certain countries over their records on sexual abuse.
The trust of the world can only be as strong as the accountability we demand. In that pursuit, both the U.N. and its member states can and should do more.
Peter Yeo is president of the Better World Campaign, a group that works to strengthen the relationship between the United States and the United Nations.
It's estimated that at least a quarter of Afghan children work, despite labor laws that forbid it. Some, like Sami, support their entire family.
Sami Rahimi sleeps fitfully on a bread rack above the bakery's cold concrete floor. He rises at 5 a.m., sweeps up, washes in a pan of chilly water, then prays.
Before the sun has risen, Sami is pushing a dented wheelbarrow through the dim streets, at 13 still a tiny figure among the vegetable hawkers and butchers slicing bloody flanks of sheep from carcasses hung on hooks. He gathers water from a public well and takes it back to the bakery.
By 6 a.m., the gas-fired stone kiln is glowing a fiery red, ready to bake the flat loaves known as khasa and the round loaves called kamachi.
Sami sweeps a platform where hot flatbread is stacked for sale. He then sits cross-legged to begin selling loaves for 10 afghanis, about 20 cents each, to customers who thrust bills through a window that he opens and closes with a long metal hook.
Working until dark six days a week, Sami earns about $80 a month, enough to support his entire family: disabled father, mother, three brothers and five sisters.
Sami has been at the bakery since he was 10, when he rode a bus from the countryside to assist his uncle, Yar Mohammed, who himself began at age 8.
I'm happy I can support my family, but I would rather go to school and be an educated person, Sami says. He shrugs as he flips over a steaming loaf with his hook, a weary gesture that makes him seem old and careworn.
Child labor is endemic in Afghanistan, despite vaguely written laws that prohibit children younger than 14 from working full time. The regulations, adopted in 2007 and last revised in 2012, allow those 14 and older to serve as apprentices and those 15 to 18 to perform "light work." They prohibit children younger than 18 from work considered hazardous or dangerous to their health.
But the laws are widely ignored because of resistance from employers and from families who need the income, said Sami Hashemi, a child-protection specialist for UNICEF in Afghanistan.
Children as young as 6 work in brick making, carpet weaving, construction, mining and farming. Others resort to begging, collecting garbage or selling trinkets on the street.
Families scramble for any job to survive. "They must focus on today, not on a future for their children," Hashemi said.
Aid groups that have poured billions of dollars into Afghanistan since 2001 are unsure how many children work. The best estimate is nearly 2 million between the ages of 6 and 17, or at least 25% of Afghan children, Hashemi said. The numbers are rising as growth in mining and construction, fueled by international assistance dollars, has lured more underage workers.
In a U.S. Labor Department report last year, the word "unavailable" is listed in a chart on the numbers of Afghan working children. The report describes sexual abuse of children who herd livestock. And it tells of children maimed or killed in construction jobs and forced to work in extreme cold or heat, carry heavy loads, smuggle narcotics or serve as soldiers.
"Research does not show any laws to prohibit child commercial sexual exploitation, pornography and use of children in illicit activities," the report says. "There do not appear to be any mechanisms to reach children involved in the worst forms of child labor in the informal sector."
Asked whether it was frustrating for a child-protection specialist to see youngsters performing punishing or dangerous jobs, Hashemi replied, "Any human being, when he sees kids with a right to education and recreation working under these conditions, will be frustrated."
On the chaotic streets of Kabul, skinny kids dart among the vehicles in traffic. They tap at windshields and beg for money. They pester drivers to buy chewing gum, candy, maps, matches, scarves, toilet paper. They collect trash to burn for fuel, or pick through garbage heaps for rotting fruit or half-eaten kebabs.
At the downtown taxi ranks, drivers pay small boys about 10 cents for each fare they enlist. They are a manic and aggressive lot, competing and cajoling and jabbering. Sometimes they half-drag, half-shove fares into taxis already jammed with men whose knees are folded to their chests. They are more gentle with the burka-clad women, helping them into open taxi trunks.
Afghanistan's working youth Despite laws banning child labor, an estimated 25% of Afghan children, some as young as 6, work full or part time.
Abdul Rafi's voice emerges from his scrawny body as a croak. He's only 9, but he has the coarse rasp of a lifelong smoker. He says he wore out his voice screaming at fares, an endeavor he began at age 6.
Abdul is the oldest of three brothers, and it has fallen to him to find work in this country whose traditions require that elder sons support their families. He is up every day at 5 a.m. for morning prayers. Then he hustles to the taxi rank amid a cacophony of donkey carts, creaky old Toyotas, Afghan military vehicles brimming with gunmen and black SUVs ferrying warlords. Most days, he barely earns $3.
"I would rather just go to school," Abdul says, his eyes scanning the street for fares. "But my family needs the money, and I'm the oldest."
He wants to be a soldier one day a literate soldier. He takes off four hours for class on school days, then hustles back to catch the late-afternoon rush hour.
He's still shouting for fares at dusk, until the shrill call from the muezzin signals evening prayers, and Abdul is off, lurching and weaving through traffic like a drunk, just another working stiff on his way home.
Across Kabul, in a warren of muddy dirt pathways at the edge of the teeming Ali Reza Khan metal market, a 12-year-old boy named Hekmat raises his hammer and slams it down on a sheet of metal. There is a sharp clang, clang, clang as the boy pounds the soft metal into shape. He has the sure stroke and effortless timing of a jazz drummer.
The metal will become a decorative cake tray in Hekmat's swift and nimble hands. All around him, boys and men beat a steady ding, ding, ding to pound out tea containers, ladles and cookstoves.
Hekmat is small and slender, with hands stained gray from four years of pounding metal. He began when his father, a garbage picker, arranged the job through the shop owner, a family friend.
Hekmat earns $6 a week for part-time work that helps support his parents and three younger brothers. He takes off from noon to 3 p.m. to attend school. He wears clean school clothes under a wool coat, stained trousers and tattered sneakers.
"I like doing this job," he says, still pounding as he speaks in a light, childish voice. "It's fun to make things."
I don't want this boy to have my life stuck inside this bakery. Yar Mohammed
He intends to keep at it until he graduates from high school. He hopes to become an engineer. "That will be a much better job than this one, so then I'll quit," he says.
His boss, Mohammed Zulmai, 25, began pounding metal when he was 10. He bought his own metal shop a few years ago. He says he knows there are laws against child labor but that he hired Hekmat as a favor to the boy's impoverished father.
He doesn't hire men, Zulmai says. Their hands are too clumsy.
"These boys have small hands, quick hands for this delicate work," he says. "I train them, and they become experts."
Zulmai has a dream for Hekmat and the other boys who work for him: "If they save their money, like me, they can one day own their own metal shop."
At the bakery, the kiln is still glowing at dusk, and Sami Rahimi is selling fresh naan for dinner. Some customers buy on credit. Sami cuts a notch into a long stick to track each purchase; at the end of the week, he counts the notches and collects payment.
Yar Mohammed, his face glistening with sweat, laughs. "We live in the 21st century, but we still count on sticks," he says.
Mohammed says he too supported his entire family when he started working in a bakery at age 8. After 20 years, he opened his own place.
"Young boys have always worked in bakeries. That's our tradition," Mohammed says, shrugging, when asked about child labor laws. And Sami isn't working against his will; the boy considers himself fortunate that his uncle hired him as a favor to his father.
Mohammed blames Western aid groups for not doing more to find alternatives for poor families and their children.
"Billions of dollars have come to Afghanistan," he says, shouting to be heard over the din of customers and the kiln. "Where did it go? Wasted. Stolen. The system is corrupt, and the Americans are part of it."
Mohammed has promised Sami's father that the boy will be educated. "I don't want this boy to have my life stuck inside this bakery," he says.
Sami listens and nods. Every day, even when he's dealing with customers, his mind is focused on the future.
"I think always about my lessons," he says. "I think about my future, which is my education."
Sami hasn't been home in 45 days. About once a week, he speaks with his mother on a borrowed cellphone. He misses his family, he says, but the men in the bakery serve as his family for now.
Customers are thinning out, trudging home in the dark. Soon, Sami will hop down from his perch and help clean up the mess from the long day. By 10 p.m., he will curl up beneath a blanket on the rack and fall asleep beside the embers dying in the kiln.
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A group of U.S. diplomats arrived in Libya three years ago to a memorable reception: a throng of cheering men and women who pressed in on the startled group just to touch us and thank us, recalled Susan Rice, President Obamas national security advisor.
The Libyans were emotional because the U.S. and its allies had toppled leader Moammar Kadafi in a military campaign that averted a feared slaughter of Kadafis foes. Obama administration officials called the international effort, accomplished with no Western casualties, a model intervention.
But in three years Libya has turned into the kind of place U.S. officials most fear: a lawless land that attracts terrorists, pumps out illegal arms and drugs and destabilizes its neighbors.
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Now, as Obama considers a limited military intervention in Iraq, the Libya experience is seen by many as a cautionary tale of the unintended damage big powers can inflict when they aim for a limited involvement in an unpredictable conflict.
If Iraq and Afghanistan are examples of overkill and overreach, Libya is the reverse case, where you do too little and get an unacceptable result, said Brian Katulis, a Middle East specialist at the Center for American Progress, a think tank. The lesson is that a low tolerance of risk can have its costs.
Though they succeeded in their military effort, the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies fell short in the broader goal of putting Libya on a path toward democracy and stability. Exhausted after a decade of war and mindful of the failures in Iraq, U.S. officials didnt want to embark on another nation-building effort in an oil-rich country that seemed to pose no threat to Western security.
But by limiting efforts to help the new Libyan government gain control over the country, critics say, the U.S. and its allies have inadvertently helped turn Libya into a higher security threat than it was before the military intervention.
Libya has become North Africas most active militant sanctuary, at the center of the resurgent threat that Obama warned about in a May address at West Point. A 2012 terrorist attack against the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
Arms trafficking from Libya is fueling conflict and insecurity including terrorism on several continents, an expert panel reported to the United Nations Security Council in February. Weapons smuggled out of Libya have been used by insurgents in Mali, by Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria and by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
More than 50,000 people, including refugees from Syria and migrants from North Africa, have flooded into Europe through Libyas porous borders, sharpening the continents immigration crisis.
The latest U.S. State Department travel warning portrays Libya as a society in near-collapse, beset by crime, terrorism, factional fighting, government failure and the wide availability of portable antiaircraft weapons that can shoot down commercial airplanes.
U.S. officials, now scrambling to reverse Libyas downward spiral, say blame rests with the Libyans who took control of a country that has proved more dysfunctional than expected.
In Libya, the bottom line is still that a lot of lives were saved, and Kadafi was removed from power, said Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor. What its going to take in the long term for Libya to succeed is strategies that build political coalitions and that train forces. Our military action alone wasnt going to be the end of the story. It was the beginning of a new chapter.
Those who argued against the 2011 intervention say problems were foreseeable.
Former Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, who argued against the military campaign while serving as ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, There wasnt enough thought given to how we were going to make sure these people had the security and freedom we wanted them to have.
Obama was initially reluctant to order the intervention, as were several top lieutenants, including former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. Gates didnt want to thrust overstretched U.S. forces into a potentially long war over a fractured society, and at one point he threatened to quit over it, he recalled in his memoir, Duty.
But the move was supported by Rice and then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who feared a looming humanitarian catastrophe. Clinton was the swing vote, Gates wrote.
Obama insisted that U.S. forces only kick off the air campaign and then give the leading role to Britain and France. The seven-month operation took longer than promised, but when it ended, Obama heralded it as proof that NATO was historys most effective military alliance.
Then the problems began.
The NATO countries, concluding that there were no opposing forces in Libya that needed to be separated, decided for the first time in alliance history not to leave behind an armed stabilization force. Instead, a tiny U.N. mission with no executive authority was left to coordinate international efforts.
The weak Libyan government resisted Western pressure to seal its borders and create a strong army, instead paying a patchwork of militias to do the job. Its leaders brushed aside Western advice on how to restore the economy, sending oil production down 80%.
They also refused to cede control of Kadafis vast arsenal of weapons. Estimated to include 1 million tons of assault rifles, small arms, antitank missiles, rockets and portable antiaircraft weapons, the cache was bigger than Britains arms inventory.
As time passed, the crumbling of institutions and the conflicts among the 125 rival armed groups proved much greater than U.S. officials had expected. Violence surged, including kidnappings and attacks on government officials.
We were all taken by surprise, when Kadafi left, by the sheer lack of government institutions, Anne Patterson, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, told a congressional panel Wednesday.
After the attack in Benghazi in September 2012, the U.S. and other Western countries cut staff in Libya, further hobbling recovery efforts.
The administrations top priority now is an eight-year plan to train a force of up to 8,000 soldiers. But one year after Libya requested the help, the program hasnt begun because it is too dangerous for the trainers to enter Libya and the dysfunctional government has been unable to raise the money.
As the Obama administration struggles with several other international crises, it is clear that the Libya conflict is considered a second-tier issue.
Last month, Clinton was asked at a Council on Foreign Relations event why the United States didnt do more to mend Libya, since the U.S.-led military campaign had broken the old order.
We did try, she said. That is a perfect case where people whove never had that opportunity to run anything, manage anything, even participate in meaningful politics, understandably are not even sure what questions to ask.
Some observers are warning that the administration eventually may be forced to do more. A Rand Corp. report this spring predicted that if Libyas problems continue to worsen, another NATO intervention might be required.
Libya is a lesson about the risks, said Robert Danin, a longtime U.S. diplomat in the Middle East who warned about the risks of ensuing chaos. With nation-building in disrepute, theres a tendency now to want to declare victory and move on. But interventions cant be done neatly.
paul.richter@latimes.com
christi.parsons@latimes.com
A new Public Religion Research Institute national poll finds that Latino voters are virtually split between Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
Conducted in tandem with The Atlantic just days before the critical April 19, New York City primary, the poll finds Sanders bagging 48 percent of Latino support versus Clinton at 47 percent.
Both Clinton and Sanders have been busy crisscrossing that region of late, desperately seeking to curry favor with the state's 19 percent Latino population, 14 percent of which are eligible voters.
Clinton has Scored Well With Latinos all Primary Season
To date, Clinton has scored well in states heavy on Latinos, earning victories in Florida, Texas and Arizona. Sanders, meanwhile, has registered victories in Colorado and Illinois, with the outcome in the heavily Hispanic populated state of Nevada still in dispute.
Overall, the PRRI results suggest Sanders could be gaining ground among Hispanic voters. Just two months ago, a NBC/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo poll found Clinton leading him among Latinos 56 percent to 39 percent.
"Latino voters are more likely to be younger than white votes and that's been part of his appeal," PRRI CEO Robert Jones said in accounting for Sanders' apparent upswing. "He's been able to be very strong among younger voters."
Indeed, millennials are estimated to account for roughly 44 percent of the Latino electorate.
Sanders' campaign spokeswoman Erika Andiola added voters have simply come to know the candidate better and that also has paid dividends.
"At the beginning it wasn't necessarily that people or voters didn't support him, they didn't necessarily know him as well as they did Secretary Clinton," she said. "It was about getting the word out."
Meanwhile, Clinton spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa deemed the poll a "complete outlier," making certain to call attention to Clinton's big wins in Texas and Florida.
"More than half of Democratic primary voters have cast their ballots and Hillary Clinton has received the overwhelming support of the Latino community," she said.
Deeper analysis of the poll reveals that nearly six in 10 Latinos have a favorable opinion of Clinton, compared to 54 percent for Sanders.
Overall, Clinton's strongest level of support comes from African Americans, who favor her 63 percent to 30 percent over Sanders.
"Latinos, while they have become over time a stronger, more reliable constituency, they don't have the same kind of ties to Clinton that African Americans do," Jones said. "Those ties go way back to the '90s," he said.
Trump's Negative Image With Latinos Persists
Meanwhile, the poll also revealed that roughly 83 percent of Latino voters have an unfavorable opinion of Republican front-runner Donald Trump. In addition, 51 percent of Hispanic voters also have a negative view of fellow GOP hopeful Ted Cruz.
Recently, a group of GOP Hispanics publicly took both Trump and Cruz to task over their hardline immigration stances, which include pledges to mass deport as many as 11 million immigrants.
On March 22, a sizable crowd from LB's Cambodian community came to the City Council to object to the then-planned presence of Lt. Hun Manet, invited by LB's Cambodian Coordinating Council, to participate in the April Cambodian New Year Parade. Faced with what amounted to a rift in LB's Cambodian community, a number of LB Councilmembers and the Mayor indicated they wouldn't participate in the parade if Hun Manet were part in the parade. Lt. Hun then indicated he wouldn't take part of the parade...and LB Councilmembers and the Mayor indicated they would participate in today's (April 10) parade.
Regarding last night's (April 9) protest demonstration, LBPD Watch Commander Mark Coble says a crowd estimated at roughly 150 people held a quite loud but otherwise peaceful demonstration outside LB's La Lune restaurant (area Anaheim/Atlantic) where Lt Coble said a visitor from Cambodia was apparently speaking or a guest [didn't confirm the person's name which we've done independently.] LBPD's presence was to ensure that the demonstrators' 1st Amendment/free speech rights were peacefully observed and respected, Lt. Coble said.
The protest, which began about 6 p.m. and ended in the 9 p.m. hour, was loud but peaceful, Lt. Coble said, and added that the demonstrators were cooperative with LBPD.
Lt Coble said that at one point, an individual tripped, fell and was injured and LBFD arrived to treat him; at another point, Lt. Coble said some third party (not LBPD) allegedly pepper-sprayed someone (unclear exactly what happened.)
The protest demonstration ultimately ended peacefully
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Pupils attending a proposed charter school at the site of the former Express-Times building will either meet or exceed state and national guidelines academically and will exceed them artistically, according to the school's founder.
Thomas Lubben on Sunday, April 10, 2016 shares his vision for a new charter school proposed at the former Express-Times building in Easton. (Pamela Sroka-Holzmann | For lehighvalleylive.com)
Thomas Lubben shared his vision for the K-5 school among an estimated dozen parents Sunday afternoon at the former Express-Times building in Easton. Lubben also opened similar charter arts schools in Bethlehem, Allentown and Salisbury Township.
September 2017 remains the targeted opening for the Easton Arts Academy Charter School, 30 N. 4th Street, and interviews with parents will take place March and April 2017. The hiring of an executive director and principal is planned for November 2016; teacher contracts will be awarded in April or May 2017; and other administration and support staff by July 2017.
All teachers hired must have an artistic background, Lubben said.
"Art will be the focus of our school," he told the group. "And every child will get what they need."
Lubben plans to submit the charter proposal to the Easton Area School District by June 2016.
Focusing on art
Offered at the school will be 3.5 hours of academics and 2.5 hours of art classes, as well as a full-day Kindergarten. However, the Kindergarten class would be capped at 15 children.
Lubben vowed the school will exceed all state and national standards artistically and meet or exceed all national standards academically. The school would offer dance, figure slating or gymnastics, theater and visual arts.
"No student will be denied entrance due to a report card," Lubben said.
Also accepted into the charter program would be any student who is disabled, academically-challenged and a legal resident of Pennsylvania. Those not accepted would be out-of-state residents, any student expelled from a school or a student with no interest in the arts.
Children must be age 5 before September 1, 2017 to be enrolled in the Kindergarten program. The school will bus all students within a 10 mile radius to and from the school, Lubben said.
Tuition is free, Lubben said. Charter schools are publicly funded and also rely deeply on fundraising efforts.
Superintendent John Reinhart had discussed the possibility of an arts charter school last year with Lubben and has been dismayed by the concept. Reinhart had said charter schools siphon away sorely needed funds from public schools.
Promoting safety
The school would take up space in the basement and four floors of the building.
Lubben envisions some administrative offices and storage space in the basement; conference rooms, the principal's office, Kindergarten classroom and multi-purpose cafeteria on the first floor.
The second floor would have two large music rooms, as well as two theater, two dance and two art classrooms. The third floor would have first grade, second grade and half of the third grade in classrooms while the fourth floor would have the rest of third grade in a classroom, as well as fourth and fifth grade classrooms.
The city already approved plans for a new police station on the northernmost portion of the property. Police are expected to use portions of the building, however, the two entities will be separated by concrete walls, staff said.
Lubben said any perpetrators entering the police department likely will be handcuffs. He told parents the school will have the utmost in safety measures, equipped with cameras at every door, a complete security system and a full-time security guard.
"How much more can we want for security?," he asked.
Upon passage of the plan, Lubben said he would start renovating the building immediately.
Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Alfredean Jones Jr
Alfredean Jones Jr. is the new Dean of Students at Easton Area High School as of March 15, 2016.
(Courtesy photo)
Easton Area High School's dean of students has a name familiar to many Easton Area alumni.
It's Alfredean Jones Jr., son of the former longtime principal.
Jones started in the newly-created post on March 15. He was formerly a social studies teacher at Easton Area Academy and at the high school.
The job was created to help handle discipline issues at the high school. Brian Mansfield was appointed to the same position at the middle school, also created to help deal with discipline.
The positions were announced around the same time officials said a spate of fights at the schools was spurred by taunting over social media.
Jones "offered a varied background of experiences and because he was a current member of the staff at the high school he had an advantage of being able to step into the position with an understanding of our particular needs and the habits of students within the high school and how they traveled through the school on a daily basis," said Superintendent John Reinhart.
Jones said meeting a troubled student on his or her terms can go a long way toward turning that student around. He's trying to build relationships with them so that they understand they shouldn't act out just because they disagree with a teacher or they perceive they're being belittled on social media.
"If you feel people are out to get you, you automatically take a certain posture," he said.
Reinhart has called on parents to help monitor their children's social media habits and stop Internet-based disputes before they escalate to fights in schools.
He encourages parents to learn more about social media. He was thrilled with a recent presentation by the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office on the impact of social media on children but wishes more parents came out.
"The attendance was very poor, I'm sorry to say," Reinhart said.
The dean of students posts are temporary through June 30 but Reinhart hopes they can become permanent.
"I'm hoping we will take a renewed look at this and see what we can learn by having this position in place and if it has had a positive impact on discipline and referrals," Reinhart said.
Jones earns a pro-rated amount of an $80,036-a-year salary. Mansfield, who formerly taught at Shawnee Elementary School, earns a prorated portion of a $72,004 annual salary.
Jones' father, along with Bill Houston, were two of the first black administrators in the Easton Area School District.
The pair had the street Jones Houston Way named after them in front of the Easton Boys & Girls Club.
"Alfredean Jones is a legend in Easton," Reinhart said. "He is a person that earned the respect of thousands of kids as they traveled through the district."
Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
UPDATE: Child was in car that crossed into opposite lane
Weather conditions likely played a role in a two-vehicle crash in Hanover Township, Lehigh County, that claimed the life of a 3-year-old girl, according to the district attorney.
The crash was reported at 4:39 p.m. Saturday in the 1900 block of Weaversville Road, near the intersection with Colonial Road, but authorities have yet to release any information on how it occurred.
Nevaeha Lydia Marie Rivera, of Weatherly, Pennsylvania, was strapped into a car seat and the seat was ejected from one of the vehicles during the collision, with the toddler still strapped inside, said Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin.
An autopsy is planned Monday.
Martin said alcohol is not believed to be a factor in the crash, noting, "There is no evidence of that."
However, a wet road following snow that afternoon likely played a role.
"There was a little bit of wet weather," Martin said of the time the crash occurred.
The rear of one car appeared to have been sheared off, and a pickup truck was against a utility pole, just south of a sharp bend on Weaversville Road.
Martin said a reconstruction team from the Pennsylvania State Police barracks in Bethlehem is gathering additional evidence and the crash remains under investigation. No charges were filed as of Sunday, Martin said, and officials have not identified other victims or motorists involved.
Troopers remained at the crash scene Saturday night more than four hours after the accident, and they left without releasing any details. A state police dispatcher Sunday said a trooper handling the investigation wasn't available.
Residents who live near the crash scene said that portion of Weaversville Road is prone to accidents.
Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Some 2,000 secondary school students from across Leinster attended a road safety roadshow in Punchestown this morning.
Some 2,000 secondary school students from across Leinster attended a road safety roadshow in Punchestown this morning.
There was be a major road safety exhibition open to members of the public from 10am to 2pm.
The event, which is being held as part of the Gathering, will be the biggest road safety event of its kind in Ireland to date, according to Declan Keogh, Kildare County Councils Road Safety officer.
Two Irish NYPD Officers attended on the day as part of the gathering festival, with their new law enforcement officer called Tango Bot.
The Road Safety Authoritys interactive Shuttle and roll-over car plus the Garda National Road Safety exhibition were also present plus 18 other related exhibitors.
A number of VIPs and celebrity guest were expected on the day. Assistant Garda Commissioner John Twomey represented the Garda Commissioner at the event on the day.
Students attending the special roadshow will see for the first time the most shocking and hard hitting road safety show to date so far.
According to Mr Keogh, it will be a very powerful, interactive and informative show, with graphic and true information from real people, involved in real life collisions.
Ive spent the last few months planning this event, it will be the biggest and most interactive road safety event of its kind ever held in the country to date.
Given the considerable increase in road fatalities this year alone, Im not even sure if the hard hitting videos and content we have lined up for the show is hard enough for the students, and believe me, they are shockingly real, he added
The feedback so far has been positive and the thoughts are that the students need to see the full insight into the causation and consequences of any type of a collision.
Recognised as one of Irelands leading composers of traditional music, Dr Charlie Lennon has just completed a 60 minute Suite to honour the heroes of the 1916 Rising, with special reference to Kiltyclogher born Sean MacDiarmada.
It will be performed for the first time next April, Thursday 14 in St Patricks Church in Kiltyclogher at 8pm, with doors opening at 7.30pm. The village church is a very appropriate venue for the concert as both Sean MacDiarmada and Charlie were baptised there.
The suite was commissioned by Gael Linn and is now published as an Album entitled Aille na hAilleA Terrible Beauty. The CD features a range of musicians from the RTE Con Tempo String Quartet to top traditional players, including Charlie himself and his daughter Eilis.
The music moves from Planxty to March, Reel, Jig, Slow Air and Song, reaching its climax in the form of a classical three movement Sonata.
The suite begins with a tribute to James Connolly, moves on to MacDiarmada and Clarke who, together with Connolly, worked closely in developing a plan of action leading to the Rising. It moves to Rosmuc where Pearse had his Summer cottage, meets Ceannt in Spiddal where he is regaling the locals with his uilleann pipes. This is followed with a poem by Pearse in which he foretells future events. It has now been put to music and presented as a song.
The suite then pays tribute to all who died in the conflict, puts one of Plunketts poems to music, plays a march for McDonagh and remembers ODonovan-Rossa in a graveside lament.
Tickets for the concert are 20 and are available from Kiltyclogher Heritage Centre, Kiltyclogher Post Office, The Dock and Glens Arts Centres and Heraghty's and Bredins of Manorhamilton. The concert is supported by Leitrim County Council under the 1916 Centenary Programme.
Liam Fox, February 2007 on the allegations against British solider Jorge Medonca over the death of Baha Mousa:
A whiff of political correctness hangs heavy over the case against Col Mendonca.
Liam Fox, September 2011, on reading the report that condemned British solider Jorge Medonca over the death of Baha Mousa:
As I read the report, my predominant feeling was disgust that individuals could have acted in this brutal way and that their appalling behaviour has tarnished the reputation of the British army.
Liam Foxs change of stance should be welcomed. Hes had new evidence presented to him, hes changed his mind and that is how things should work. But it is a striking case of how different things can look when you are an opposition politician getting selective leaks from insiders or the recently retired from when you are a government minister reading a comprehensive investigation.
A few days ago, Edinburgh Westerns SNP candidate took to the Evening News to take a swipe at the Liberal Democrats, accusing us of being negative before lobbing a few insults our way.
Alex Cole-Hamilton, who hopes to regain the seat for the Liberal Democrats, wrote his own article for the News. He writes:
Toni, Im sorry youve been offended. But I dont think that drawing attention to the failings of your government or your local representatives should be viewed as underhand, Id view it as the democratic duty of a healthy opposition.
When the person you asked us to vote for last May turns up for fewer than half of the votes in the House of Commons since September then I think that as your nearest challenger, I should voice the view of the significant majority of those in our constituency who feel thats just not good enough.
When your ministers preside over a year on year decline in the global rankings of our education system, the shambolic and unwanted centralisation of public services or a waiting times crisis in our health service, then someone should point out that we deserve much better.
Now, I understand its hard for you. The constitution of the SNP prohibits you from openly criticising your party or its policies. But Im not in your party so I can provide a counterpoint to the nationalist dogma that is currently choking Scottish Politics.
The SNP seeks to shut down dissent in communities across Scotland with online intimidation and ridicule, your own campaign team engages in this on a regular basis. Yet here I still am.
John F Kennedy said that without debate, without criticism no administration can succeed and no republic can survive. Whilst the SNP may win another landslide (and I think that would be terrible for our democracy if they do), there will always be people like me across the chamber, offering that debate and that criticism. Dont try to shut it down.
My campaign has been about policy from the start, after all the Lib Dems have got a cracking offer to take to the electorate: A transformational year on year investment of 500m in education through nurseries, schools and reversing SNP cuts to 152,000 college places; a reconfigured health budget that staves off the GP recruitment crisis whilst putting mental health on an equal footing in primary care; and a resolute commitment to protecting the environment and defending civil liberties.
My campaign is about offering my local community something better. Better than the policies of a government which puts its obsession with independence before the needs of our public services. Better than the substandard service we have had to put up with from the local nationalist MP over this last year. Its a positive message which is resonating with more and more people across West Edinburgh.
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 454th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (3-9 April, 2016), together with a hand-picked quintet, you might otherwise have missed.
Dont forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox just click here ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.
As ever, lets start with the most popular post, and work our way down:
1. How happy should Lib Dems be with 16% local election vote share projection? by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
Mark analyses the prediction by Rallings and Thrasher.
2. TNS poll shows Lib Dem support rising by Dawud Islam on LibDemHame.
A 2% rise for the party is not to be sneezed at.
3. How Conservatives canvassed for the 2015 General Election by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
Their key message was right there in their script.
4. Fabulous praise for Caroline Pidgeon from the Evening Standard by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
Interesting that some of it comes from her opponents.
5. The Lib Dem team for the Liverpool local elections by Richard Kemp on But what does Richard Kemp think?
And its more diverse than you would think from the photo.
6. Did the Lib Dems hold back the worst excesses of the Tories? by Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus.
An unqualified yes.
7. How to win a marginal seat Gavin Barwells story by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
Particularly interesting section on the importance of face to face contact with the voters.
And now to the five blog-posts that come highly recommended, regardless of the number of Aggregator click-throughs they attracted. To nominate a Lib Dem blog article published in the past seven days your own, or someone elses, all you have to do is drop a line to [email protected] You can also contact us via Twitter, where were @libdemvoice
8. For any woman who thinks politicians isnt for them by Elaine Bagshaw on Medium.com.
Some compelling reasons why they should make sure their voices are heard.
9. Crass Tories to cut Business department despite steel crisis by Peter Black on Peter Black.
Apparently 40% staffing cuts are planned.
10. Tales from the campaign trail what matters to the people of Ceredigion by Liz Evans on Tales from the Campaign trail.
A campaign video from Liz what has disappointed local residents?
11. Selling our enemies the rope to hang us by Cicero on Ciceros Songs.
Two aspects of the Panama Papers scandal that the media hasnt picked up on.
12. Liberal Youth Conference preview the big motions by various on LY Libertine.
The Young Liberals are coming back!
Your bonus this week comes from Mark Valladares on his sojourn to the Highlands, especially as he was so nice about my dog.
And thats it for another week. Happy blogging n reading n nominating.
Featured? Add this to your blog post!
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
THE SIGHT of a new garda on the beat in east Limerick has been welcomed in the locality after the bursts of serious crime that rocks the very heart of what a community is about in 2015.
A deep sense of fear spread across the area during a spate of malicious hay barn fires and the tragic death of John ODonoghue after he returned to his Doon home to find intruders.
Chief Superintendent David Sheahan said he was acutely aware of the need to reallocate guards in east Limerick. Garda John Ryan is the man entrusted with the role and is stationed in Pallasgreen
Chief Supt Sheahan; acting Bruff superintendent, Inspector Luke Conlon and Sergeant Ted Riordan all attended the launch of Doons community text alert scheme in December.
Limericks most senior garda said the appointment followed on from that meeting with the concerned community.
Arising from that I had to have a serious look at my resources within the division. I decided then to allocate a guard to reassure the community in that area; that their needs were being listened to and also the concerns that they have were being addressed .
It was hugely important to me that the right person would be assigned to the area and they would be proactive in dealing with issues pertaining to east Limerick, said Chief Supt Sheahan, who stressed that Garda Ryan wont just be confining himself to Pallasgreen
I would hope that it will breed confidence in the community and I have no doubt if they have any issues they can contact any garda and they will attend to any issues they have out there, said Chief Supt Sheahan.
At the text alert launch, Chief Supt Sheahan praised locals efforts to assist gardai and sympathised with those who had been affected by crime. He said the village of Doon had endured bursts of serious crime that rocks the very heart of what a community is about,
It is easier to solve some crimes than to get over the fear of them. Sometimes the fear is a bigger issue than the crime itself.
THE threat of a British exit from the EU is another strong motivation to push ahead with the Shannon LNG project in order to protect Irelands energy security in the future, according to Fine Gael MEP Sean Kelly.
Mr Kelly made his comments following a meeting between company representatives and a group of MEPs last week. The briefing also included a presentation from Shannon Foynes Port Company.
The members of the group, he added, were positively disposed towards the project. They could see not only the logic but the necessity for it, Mr Kelly said.
He claimed that several members of the group were surprised by the fact that the project had run into so many obstacles since it was granted planning permission by An Bord Pleanala.
He also pointed out that the backers of the plan told him that the support from Europe for the project was keeping it alive and that if they could get clarity on the tariffs issue, it would remove another big stumbling block to the project.
Mr Kelly said that the potential British exit from the Eurozone offered another strong motivation to develop the project.
We have been dependant for years on the interconnector from Britain and if the UK leaves the EU then we become almost an energy island, he warned.
The MEP for Ireland South has been a strong advocate of the project to develop the 600m terminal for liquified natural gas at Ballylongford on the Shannon Estuary. Backers of the project say it could create over 600 jobs during the construction phase and employ about 50 people full time when up and running.
However, the project - first mooted in 2006 - has been delayed by a series of disputes with the energy regulator over a requirement that the company would have to pay tariffs towards the cost of a gas interconnector with Britain.
Mr Kelly believes, however, that Shannon LNG has the potential to significantly boost gas supplies across Europe.
The Shannon LNG project in Kerry was cited by the European Commission as a future strategic hub for Europes gas supply in recent months. That means it is now eligible for low cost financing from the European Investment Bank (EIB).
The Commission is focused on supporting gas hubs such as this one which, when combined with a fully interconnected and well-functioning European market, can increase supply security across the Union and allow Shannon to become a key gas import point for the EU, he said.
My fellow MEPs and I will be reviewing the Commissions forthcoming strategy for the LNG supply in Europe this autumn, so todays meeting is timely and of huge interest to the delegation who will be key decision-makers in shaping future EU policy.
I have often highlighted the potential of the Shannon LNG project which could boost Europe's gas supply at a time when we urgently need to secure our energy supplies, Mr Kelly added.
The MEPs who visited the region last week belong to the European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.
LIMERICK Animal Welfare has now transformed the lives of 160 mistreated and abandoned greyhounds and lurchers by rehoming them in Italy.
Since 2012, the animal charity has been working with rescue organisation Pet Leverieri. Up to 20 dogs travel at a time from Kilfinane to the Mediterranean country. While Limerick Animal Welfare (LAW) would prefer to rehome lurchers and greyhounds in Ireland there isnt the same demand as in Italy, where they are much valued pets and life companions.
After a life of misery they are now living la dolce vita. Blue, who travelled to Italy on the March trip was thrown from a moving car said Marie OConnor, of LAW.
He was a skeleton, frozen and scared of humans. Blue made a full recovery and became the most loving and trusting dog. One of our volunteer dog walkers grew very attached to him and said an emotional goodbye when he left, said Marie.
Robert was found with a broken leg and was extremely thin.
He needed to have a plate in his leg and there were many trips to the vet with him. The dedicated staff at LAW gave Robert the best care and nursed him back to health. He recovered fully and went to Italy on the last trip, said Marie.
Kenny will also see his circumstances come full circle in the future.
He strayed into a farmers hay barn and lay down, unable to get up. The farmer was elderly so his nephew rang LAW for help. They lifted the poor creature into their car and took him to a vet where he was given immediate treatment.
Kenny's ear was ruptured and was so full of pus and infection it took two hours to flush the wound and it then had to be stitched back together. Kenny had sores and hair loss all over his body. This poor animal was starved to the point of near death and would not have lasted much more than a couple of days had he not been rescued by the kind hearted farmer and his nephew. Kenny was unable to make this trip to Italy but he will be on the next one, to a new life, said Marie.
The journey to Milan is a long one - 24 hour ferry trip to Cherbourg, then a 1,200km drive across France and into Italy.
There was torrential rain for the whole of the long journey but, when they arrived the atmosphere was charged - full of excitement and eagerness from the Italian adopters waiting to greet the newest member of their family. They have been waiting months for this moment and the joy and love for these dogs is written all over their faces.
This all the reward that is needed for the months of work and dedication to bring them together and to give these rescued greyhounds and lurchers a second chance to have a full and happy life, said Marie.
The adoption process starts months in advance of the big day. Profiles and photographs are sent from Ireland to Italy for prospective owners. Before travelling all dogs must be issued with a pet passport, get a rabies vaccination and have a vet check.
To support LAW you can donate directly to their bank account, via pay pal, text or through their charity shops and Kilfinane sanctuary. Full details are on their website.
They also welcome volunteers to help clean, look after the animals and walk the dogs. Contact 063 91110 for more information.
MORE than 70 blood donors from across Limerick were honoured at the weekend for achieving the milestone of donating either 50 or 100 pints of blood.
The donors many of whom have been donating blood for more than 30 years attended the event at the Greenhills Hotel, which was organised by the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS).
Donors from Clare, Tipperary and North Kerry were also honoured on the night.
People have been donating for years and its really a lifetime achievement for a lot of donors. If you are only donating two or three times a year, it takes a long time to get to 50, said Aileen Browne, regional manager of the IBTS, who herself recently donated her 50th pint of blood.
It is estimated that just 3% of the population donate blood regularly, with IBTS research showing that three lives are saved by each unit that is donated.
Jim Hickey, who has donated more than 140 pints over the past 55 years, now helps organise the quarterly mobile blood donation clinics in Caherconlish.
My mother had cancer and she had a number of serious operations and she was a recipient so thats what triggered it off. I was 18 (when I started) and I have been going ever since, said Jim who previously received a Limerick Person of the Month Award.
Of those who received awards at the weekend, 10 have donated more than 100 pints.
Joan Magner-Walsh, from Knockaderry, is the second person in her family to reach the golden milestone.
It is a thrill, Im proud of the fact that I have given 100 pints, said Joan, whose older sister, Mary, also donated 100 pints before developing diabetes which prevented her from donating any more.
Our father said to give if we could and that was it, I was delighted to give it and I encouraged the children to donate it as well, said Mary who added she has got back pints since due to her illness.
Kieron Brislane, who is originally from Caherdavin, has also reached the milestone of donating 100 pints.
I kept it going because I was doing something that I felt was worthwhile and it cost me nothing and the payback is somebodys life somewhere and thats the way I always looked at it and Im always up to encourage people to to the same because its painless and it costs you nothing, he said.
Farmer Seamus Aherne and his wife, Una, who have each donated more than 50 pints said the local blood donation clinics are a night out for the couple, who celebrated their 40th annivserary last year,.
The first reason I ever got involved before I met Seamus was because my mother had been given blood.
I gave back all that she had been given and then my father-in-law had some blood given to him as well and I said I would just continue, said Una, who lives in Cappamore.
Seamus says giving blood is no big ordeal and is something that everyone should do. They are constantly looking for blood and we dont miss it and its good to give it, he said.
A Ballyleague man is about to fulfil a longtime ambition by kayaking along the Shannon from Lanesboro to Limerick, and he's doing it all for charity.
Patrick 'Junior' Hannon will set off on the adventure late next month and he hopes to complete it in as few as three days.
I've been kayaking for around 15 years and this is something I've always wanted to do. he explained. A few other lads are going to be joining me for the journey, including Roy Glennon who is a manager at Senator Windows in Longford, Niall Madden from Ballykeeran in Westmeath, and Fergal Brazil from Tullamore. We're hoping other people will also get sponsorship and join us long the route.
We're planning on rowing around 30 miles a day but we also want to enjoy the trip. My kayak and gear are being sponsored by the Canoe Centre in Blanchardstown; We'll have VHF radios with us and a support van which will follow us with our tents and cooking equipment.
Junior added that the trip will be a fundraiser for the Irish Cancer Society.
It will be in aid of cancer research, he explained.
Everyone has been touched by cancer at some stage; my own father died from it and my wife Elaine's aunts and uncles died from it.
I have sponsorship cards in all the local shops and people can also donate online by going to www.justgiving.com/Patrick-Junior-Hannon1.
Ballymahon Credit Union has completed a unique merger with two other credit unions in Ireland.
The financial institution has joined forces with the Affinity Credit Union which is based in Cashel, Co Tipperary and includes Monaleen Credit Union in Co Limerick as well as Cashel Credit Union
Manager at Ballymahon Credit Union is Noelle Doherty.
She is also the chief financial officer of the new group.
Noelle has been involved with Ballymahon Credit Union since 2001 when she was appointed treasurer.
In 2009 she took up the position of manager of the credit union which was founded in 1998.
Ballymahon Credit Union celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2013 and is due to open its 5000th account any day now.
Over the last few years members have been looking for a different service from the credit union; they wanted on-line access, they wanted an app and they wanted the ability to run their financial affairs from their credit union account, she said before pointing out that after looking at the number of options, managment at Ballymahon Credit Union looked to Affinity Credit Union which had already established on-line services for its members.
We felt it was a good fit - Cashel would also be focused on it its members locally and that is something that we would do here in Ballymahon as well.
Meanwhile, the new merger means that there are charges to the structure of the local credit union.
The board of Affinity Credit Union meets in Cashel and former Ballymahon Credit Union director Ann Lloyd will sit on that board.
A local community committee has now been established in Ballymahon and it will liaise with the board in relation to promotions and competitions that will be run locally.
The aim of the merger, says Noelle is to bring credit unions together to provide better services for their members.
Back in Ballymahon a new computer system has been installed.
Other changes mean that when a member applies for a loan now they will be provided with more options.
A new rate for unsecured loans of 9% has also been introduced and 95% of loan applications will be dealt with locally.
We still want members to come into the office; in fact we will have more time to spend with our members now because the merger means that much of the administration work will be carried out centrally meaning staff in Ballymahon will have more time to spend with members to talk to them and find out exactly what they want, continued Noelle.
We are very excited about the merger and look forward to growing our membership.
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Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Myanmar on Move....: Love-hate Relationship and a Marriage of (...)
by Sonu Trivedi
Having undergone transition from authoritarianism to democracy in 2010, Myanmars disciplined democracy is on move since the first free and fair democratic elections in 2015 held after a gap of six decades. However, in its current phase of transition, on the one hand it is facing the daunting task of re-building its institutions, while on the other, the forces of the past remain powerful demanding a delicate balancing and thoughtful compromises both from the wielders of past regime and the present leadership.
The New government in Myanmar remains deeply entangled amidst the tussle between the hardliners and soft-liners in the authority. This is visible in both the military as well as the democratic camp. The hardliners in the military are more concerned about securing their position and seats in the parliament and the Cabinet whereas reformists are providing space for democracy to blossom though it is still in its nascent stage. However, what is more alarming is that the reform process in Myanmar is scarred by reformists and the hardliners in the democratic camp as well. The National League for Democracy (NLD) suffers from a lack of professionalism and centralised structure. There has been a strong discontentment amongst its members during the pre-election phase on the issue of selection of candidates and distribution of party tickets; this has further deepened in the post-election scenario owing to the distribution and allocation of ministerial portfolios.
The complicated and delicate relationship between the military and Aung San Suu Kyi has been the bedrock of the current reform process in Myanmar. Any strain in this relationship is going to adversely affect the transition process in the country. The changing political dynamics with the entry of Aung San Suu Kyi and her party in parliament is going to shape the future of political transformation in Myanmar. Her entry in parliament has been a means of legitimising the regimes mandate to govern and enhance its own reform credentials. The military needs her in parliament to bolster its authority in the government. However, Aung San Suu Kyi needs the military perhaps more than anyone else if she is to advance politically and amend the Constitution, given that a quarter of seats are reserved for the military in parliament. Therefore, any effort to amend the Constitution cannot disregard the role and support of the military officers present in parliament.
Amidst the current state of affairs, choosing a proxy candidate as the President (reasons for which are obvious); creating the post of State Counsellor and assuming it; and reserving the Cabinet berth of Minister in the Presidents Office for herself, in addition to the Foreign Ministry explains the appeasement of the military to retain its influence as prescribed and specified within the letters of the Constitution. However, at this juncture, Aung San Suu Kyi also cannot afford a confrontationist strategy if she has to assume a pseudo- presidential role outside the framework of the Constitution. This compromise between the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law echoes a unique love-hate relationship and a marriage of convenience by boththe military and the NLD to retain their control over authority in Myanmar respectively.
Demilitarising politics and sending the military back to the barracks is the foremost challenge for the new government which requires consistent effort and perseverance. Notwithstanding the reform initiatives, the Army still wields enor-mous influence over Myanmars institutions. The Ministry of Defence, Home and Border Affairs remain under the armed forces [Article 232 (b) (ii) of the 2008 Constitution]. Furthermore, Article 201 related to the formation of a National Defence and Security Council (NDSC) and its role during the Emer-gency is a sign of the military being sacrosanct. Failure of the democratic forces to bring about constitutional reforms and the amendment of the controversial Article 59(f) of the Constitution has ruled out all the possibilities of Aung San Suu Kyi becoming the President, though she is the leader of the largest ruling party in parliament. On top, Article 60 provides for the procedure of electing the President who is chosen from the candidates put forward by each of the two Houses of Parliament, in addition to a third nominee from the military. The winning candidate becomes the President while the succeeding two serve as first Vice-President and second Vice-President respectively. In the current Parliament U Htin Kyaw who won with 360 of the 652 votes cast in the two Houses of Parliament, emerged as the President. He was followed by Myint Swe, who was nominated by the military and received 213 votes. The third place was taken over by an ethnic Chin candidate, Henry Van Thio, nominated by the Upper House, who got 79 votes. In addition, the most infamous Article 74 laying down the procedure for formation of the Union Parliament according to which one-third of the seats would be reserved for the Defence Forces in both the Houses and Article 161 extending this modus operandi to the Regional Parliaments. In view of that, Myanmars experience reflects its fragile experiment with democracy which still depends upon the relics of the previous regime.
In view of the growing Centre-periphery contestations, the issue of ethnic reconciliation demands high priority of the government, which has signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) as a part of the three-stage process towards peace and ethnic reconciliation. Though the government had signed bilateral ceasefire agreements with 15 armed groups, only eight out of these were party to the NCA. However, some of the volatile groups such as the Kachin Independence Army, the United Wa State Army, and the abrogation of the ceasefire agreement by the Kokang ethnic armed group have challenged the reconciliation process and hope for durable peace in Myanmar. Critics are apprehensive about the peace deal because of the ongoing skirmishes with some of the major armed groups and the deep-seated mistrust that some of these ethnic groups share towards the military. Nevertheless, resolving the ethnic issue will be Myanmars biggest challenge now. Overcoming the sixty-year-old ethnic conflict will not be easy and the government will have to do a great deal to build the trust necessary to move beyond the ceasefires to resolve the underlying political issues and, last but not the least, post-conflict reconstruction and peace building which remain crucial for post-conflict security and stability in Myanmar.
Economic reconstruction and recovery in a country where corruption is endemic is an Achilles heel. Much of the dominance by the military which remains in Myanmar is also because of its economic might and control over resources. Extension of military control over the national economy under Ne Wins Burmese Way of Socialism and antagonism to private capital, liberalisation and xenophobia has led to the stagnation of the economic institutions in Myanmar. Adoption of the nationalistic policies in the modernisation of the country has led to the establishment of a state- led developmental model and absence of strong corporatist elites emerging separate from the military. Pacifying this growing internal urge for economic recovery in recent years, financial stability and security are going to be the single most significant challenge of change for Myanmar.
The newly elected President U Htin Kyaw must focus on safeguarding the interests of the minorities, women, children and other margina-lised communities, release of political prisoners and Child soldiers and cushion the pressures generated by the anchors of the global political economy. The widening majority-minority divide has been an unfortunate development in Myanmar. This historic conflict has flared up communal violence in the recent past, thereby complicating the socio-religious fabric and aggravating tensions. On this particular front, the advocate of democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, appears to have failed to act, given the possibility of alienating voters during the elections, which otherwise would have been crucial in mainstreaming them. Her critics also appear to be at loggerheads for not having come out openly on this issue of worsening sectarian violence. Thus, consolidating her position amidst the waves of sectarian violence and widening rift between the Buddhist majority and Muslim minority is another formidable challenge faced by the new President and Aung San Suu Kyi. Amidst the limited political role she is expected to play, according to the Constitution (theoreti-cally), and the deep skepticism existing towards the political institutions which are still largely dominated by the military, she needs to take calculated steps in this democratic re-engineering and re-structuring.
Sonu Trivedi teaches at Zakir Husain Delhi College, University of Delhi.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Are Universities Under Ideological Attack?
Is there a concerted effort by the Sangh Parivar to infiltrate into the realm of higher education in the name of nationalism, culture and indigenous knowledge? In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, higher education was used by the powerful forces of nationalism in the USSR, Germany, Italy and even in Europe and the USA to shape national identities and serve narrow national interests. As a result higher education produced ideologues for Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, Communist Russia and China, and capitalist USA. It was a state- controlled education with clear goals and objec-tives without any autonomy in the educational sphere. Individuals were shaped by the ideology of the state and by being subservient to the designs aimed at promoting the legitimacy of the state.
Is Higher Education Controlled?
With the kind of developments taking place in higher education, one gets the impression that the country is moving in a similar direction today. Is the ruling regime making use of higher education in particular and education in general for vested interests to create ideologues and citizens for a nationalist state? A few examples will suffice. The presence of Baba Ramdev with the members of the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram at the meeting of the Unnat Bharat Yojana anchored by the IIT- Delhi, an institute of national repute, where recommen-dations were made for research on the genetic code of bulls, cows and cow-based agriculture, was hardly an academic exercise. Why did the IIT allow this? The answer is simple. The Institute wants to be a part of the establishment and those in the administration of the institution are not concerned about its academic reputation. Take the other example of the de-recognition of the Ambedkar-Periyar Study Circle in IIT-Madras. There was absolutely no logic in the de-recognition of the association. Why should discussions and debates be ever banned in educational institutions in a democratic state? These institutions were created for the purpose of making students aware of the national icons who shared an ideology of social transformation. However, when the powers that be decided in Delhi to ban such an organisation, those in the administration obliged. Similar actions have been repeated in other institutions as well. That groups of the affiliates of the Sangh Parivar like the ABVP and others have begun to control the campuses through their illegitimate actions is something that is worrisome.
Appointments
The other way of exercising control is through appointments. In spite of vehement opposition from students of the Institute and the public, Gajendra Chauhan, not known for his academic credentials, recently took over as the Chairman of the Film and Television Institute of Pune. Pro-RSS individuals, such as Anagha Ghaisas, Narendra Pathak, Pranjal Saikia and Rahul Solapurkar, have been appointed to the FTII Society. The credentials of these persons are that they are loyal to the forces of the Sangh Parivar and are willing to further the latters agenda. There are more and more people of the kind taking on leadership positions in the universities. Chandrakala Padia was appointed as the Chair-person of Indian Institute of Advanced Studies in place of Gopalkrishna Gandhi who resigned once Modi took over as the Prime Minister. Girish Chandra Tripathi, a State-level RSS functionary, was appointed as the Vice-Chancellor of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU). The only criterion that Y. Sudershan Rao, who was appointed as the Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research, had was his proximity to the RSS. He was a Professor of History at the Kakatiya University in Telangana and functioned as the head of the Andhra Pradesh chapter of the Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana (ABISY), a subsidiary of the RSS. He had supported the caste system in India and stated his vision of re-writing Indias history to prove the historicity of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. To make his work smooth in the organisation the others who have been accom-modated in the reconstituted team are mostly office-bearers of the RSS-backed ABISY. Lokesh Chandra at 87, who should have lived a retired life, now heads the Indian Council of Cultural Relations and claims that Modi is a greater leader than Gandhi. That makes him eligible to head the institution. Baldev Sharma, the former editor of the RSS mouthpiece, Panchjanya, was appointed as the Chairman of the National Book Trust in March this year. Vishram Ramchandra Jamdar, a professed RSS swayamsevak, has been appointed as the head of the Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur even when he was not among the four shortlisted candidates for the post. Pahlaj Nihalani, the newly appointed Censor Board of Film Certificate (CBFC) Chairman, was the brain behind the BJPs Har har Modi, Ghar ghar Modi campaign during the last Lok Sabha elections. Many of the recent appointments at Prasar Bharti have been of people affiliated to the Sangh in direct or indirect ways. Perhaps the most crucial of these appointees is A. Surya Prakash as the bodys Chairman; he was the Consulting Editor of The Pioneer and a distinguished Fellow at the Vivekananda International Foundation, a Delhi-based pro-RSS think-tank, that was earlier headed by the current National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval. These bodies exercise large influence. Now that they are appointed, they will make similar appointments from their fold to these bodies.
Other Means
The other areas of concern are that reputed institutions like the IIMs and similar bodies are inviting Right-wing ideologues to be on the right side of the establishment. These ideologues are influencing trade, business and culture. The proposal to have separate vegetarian canteens in the IIMs, IITs and other major universities was another one of those acts to sharply divide the institutions. Contentious issues like beef and Ram Mandir have begun to create strife in campuses. With the meet in the Delhi University campus on Ram Mandir, the fire of saffronisation has already been lit. With the appointment of more and more party ideologues as Vice-Chancellors and Directors of institutes, aggressive proposals are being made for introducing courses in yoga, Sanskrit and culture. The ICCR is allegedly putting pressure on universities to create chairs in cultural studies to be named after Vivekanandaa figure the RSS has adopted in the pantheon of Hindutva iconsand, even more controversially, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, whose contribution to culture remains unknown
Larger Agenda
There is a larger agenda here. With these ideologues the government in power hopes to bring about more substantive changes in the content of education as envisaged by the RSS. Those uncomfortable to the party in power are either being sacked or made to resign. When the NCERT Director, Parvin Sinclair, refused to toe the line of Smriti Irani, she was ousted over two years before her term could end aborting at the last stage the revision of the National Curriculum Framework 2005 she had initiated to de-saffronise education in the country. Nuclear scientist Anil Kakodkar resigned from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombays governing body in March, following reports of differences with the HRD Minister. Gopalkrishna Gandhi, the Chairman of Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, decided to resign. Mahesh Rangarajan stepped down as the Director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) as he understood that the BJP wanted him to go. Sandeep Pandey, the progressive Professor, was sacked for his Left-leaning views from teaching in the Banares Hindu University. These are some of the examples. While on the one hand members of the BJP or those close to the BJP/RSS have been appointed to important positions, those who oppose the agenda of the Sangh Parivar are either kept out or made to resign by allegations that are simply not true.
Interference into Culture
The BJP and its organisations have publicly stated that they are committed to cleanse India of the pollution caused by Western culture by preparing independent roadmaps for the proposed culture cleansing exercise which will involve curricula, art and cinema, science, technology and libraries. The promise made is to totally revamp all these institutions and academic programmes with a detailed roadmap. Learning of Sanskrit has already acquired importance as a part of making the young feel proud in their ancient heritage. The Haryana Government has already introduced Gita in schools. Lessons from Mahabharata, Ramayana and Gita may soon be taught in schools and colleges as part of the plan to rid the country of cultural pollution and inculcate values in accordance with the RSS directives. Yoga tsunami is set to swamp the Indian educational institutions. The climax of it all was the recent Science Congress that embarrassed India internationally by allowing the presentation of two papersone on how Lord Shiva is the greatest environmentalist and another on the physical and spiritual benefits of playing the shankh (conch). And all these policies and programmes have been pushed through the Human Resource Development Ministry headed by a person who does not even have a graduate degree!
At the Osmania University, Hyderabad on December 10, 2015 eight organisers of the controversial beef festival and pork festival were detained. A curfew-like situation prevailed on the campus with heavy police security being deployed to prevent any untoward incident. The BJP MLA, K. Ram Bhupal Rao, had vowed to stop the beef festival and had announced that he would perform a Gau Puja (cow worship) on the day. Food and its choice are fundamental to the rights of citizens. Why should it become an issue in a secular state other than for cultural nationalism of the Sangh Parivar? The objective of all these is to condemn the modern and scientific temperament and replace it with primitive thoughts. The RSS and its affiliates are terribly frightened of free minds, rational thought and critical enquiry. To prevent any positive change in society, the RSS with its affiliates is prepared to take the country back in time where everything with modern or Western influence could be banished. The tragedy of all that would be indoctrination of young impressionable minds who should be made to think objectively and critically.
There is a Pattern
There is a clear pattern in all that the Sangh is engaged in to bring about long-term changes in Indian state and society through education. Look at the way the Modi Government has gone about the celebration of Christmas. At first the Central Government declared the day as Good Governance Day, a day that was celebrated as a national festival by people of all faiths whether one believed in the tenets of Christianity or not. More than the celebration of Christmas, it was a recognition of the presence of a community of 2.3 per cent people who have been active in the countrys educational, service and civil society sectors. The cancellation of the holiday and observance of it as Good Governance Day was to undermine the communitys contri-bution. To make matters worse through an executive order the state decided to celebrate the birth anniversaries of two Parivar icons on that day, Atal Behari Vajpayee and the even-more sectarian former Hindu Mahasabha leader Madan Mohan Malaviya. All this was done in the name of culture, further reinforcing its narrow view of Christians as outsiders and the icons of the Sangh Parivar who have been hostile for Christians and their faith as nationa-lists.
Response
Unfortunately, there has not been a national outcry against the sudden and subtle trans-formation of education to suit the agenda of the party in power. The Opposition is not making any noise. With lack of Opposition in the Lower House and lack of thought in the Rajya Sabha, the BJP has found it easy to impose its core doctrine on the country. The most affected are the colleges and universities. The academia as a whole, with rare exceptions, when asked to bend, is on its knees, trying to curry favour with the existing establishment.
The tragedy of Indian higher education is that a large section of those in the system are there for their livelihoods and employment without any deep commitment to the world of ideas and society. They are ideologically bankrupt and you do not expect them to stand up and resist. That is why instead of an environment of academics, where issues have to be discussed and debated, we have colleges and universities that exist to transmit knowledge for degrees than for life.
Policing in campuses is on the increase. There is the big brother watching with cameras the entire campus life. Not only is the world of ideas controlled, but even human behaviour in campuses remains controlled more and more. There is already unfreedom and insecurity in the system. What is sad, however, is the silence of the political parties and academic activists.
Resist Saffronisation
The RSS agenda or ideology has to be resisted for several reasons. What is basically proposed by the RSS/BJP team is a set of ideas of the Brahmanic religion that does not represent Hinduism at all. Through educational institu-tions the state is attempting to legitimise these ideas by imposing Sanskrit, yoga,Gita and other religious texts. Secular education is now being getting communalised. The whole developmental slogan that was used by Modi to get elected is used to Hinduise society. Instead of helping students to think critically the BJP-led policy provides students with a set of myths, beliefs and superstitions. Educational institutions are not places for indoctrination to internalise myths, beliefs and dogmas but spaces to think, to reason and to analyse.
Any indoctrination or imposition of an ideology from above would hinder the very reason for existence of these institutions: to advance knowledge by original and critical investigation. Transmitting the legacy of the past is important, but that legacy has to be transmitted with more questions than answers so that students and teachers examine that legacy in a spirit of search for truth.
Higher Educational Institutions are for Critical Engagement
In the classical view which is still valid to a large extent, the institution of higher education are communities of scholars and students engaged in a common task. This engagement needs criticality and research to delve into issues and concerns that matter to society. But politics cannot dictate these. Research is a free choice. Individual scholars and scientists should have the freedom to pursue the truth, and to teach and publish their findings. For research to be termed research it needs to be objective by following rigorous intellectual criteria and subject to what is today called peer review to prevent political interference. How can people research on cows and cow dung, provide evidence for the presence of atom and nuclear bombs in ancient India since these are political issues? Similarly as long as Ramayana and Mahabharata are not historical texts but religious epics of particular religious groups, it is wrong to impose them on the country.
Partisan politics would destroy higher education. For years colleges and universities enjoyed a measure of autonomy, even when the state paid professors and dictated curricula. That autonomy was a boon. A section of the academicians for years had come to exercise their right to be active citizens and pronounced on political questions, making universities the home of public intellectuals, and a creative and independent cultural force. Science had become more people-oriented addressing the concerns of the people. Institutes of higher education need this autonomy to govern their own affairs and to make decisions on academic matters.
The examples of countries like Germany and Sweden are worth emulating. In spite of the prevalence of laissez-faire capitalism, institutions of higher education in these countries stand outside the system of market relations without being run as commercial organisations. They are fully funded by the state without direct interference with their own autonomy which has helped these countries to protect their liberty and diversity. Without keeping out party politics and economic power of the markets, higher education wont thrive. A knowledge economy depends on the quality and independence of knowledge without any ideological onslaught. What the country badly needs is a higher education system financed by the state without state interference to promote a knowledge society.
Conclusion
This is possible even at the last juncture if politics is supportive. The Centrist and Leftist parties could begin a campaign backed by members of the academia and the public at large. Allowing education to be communalised has serious consequences. It is an anti-national and anti-constitutional project. The country cannot be allowed to drift. According to the Constitution, India is a secular state. There is no place for the teaching of any religious texts in institutions of learning. The imparting of secular, rational and scientific education is a mandate of the secular state. When the ruling party moves away from that mission, it is the bounden duty of the Opposition to take up the issue and mobilise the nation.
Is the Opposition failing the nation? The Oppositions main role is to question the govern-ment of the day and hold them accountable to the public. Any government has to remain answerable to the public at all times, and a good Opposition can put the spotlight on serious issues and have them resolved quickly. The Opposition has also to mobilise support and take sections of the academia into confidence. There is no doubt that the changes that are introduced and the changes that are visualised need debates and discussions and the Opposition parties must protect higher education in the country from the clutches of the communal and fascist forces.
Dr Ambrose Pinto SJ is the Principal, St. Aloysius Degree College, Bangalore.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Shame on You!
by K. Narayana
I feel ashamed of you now, after all these years of admiration. What is your status and what is Kanhaiyas level? Why did you go to the airport to receive him?complains a well- wisher of mine.
A person who had praised deshadrohi Afzal Guru, is getting your support! Shame on you! another friend of mine expresses his ire.
You had followed Kanhaiya to the Central University. Did you ever realise what impression it will create? one more Leftist friend enquires.
I concede that I am facing criticism from some quarters like these three typical ones I have listed above. I am not talking about the numerous praises and expressions of support I have received. I will take cognisance of the criticism rather than the words of support. Expressions of support might elate you and help you to move forward, but their role is limited to that. It is only the criticism that helps us to introspect.
Anti-National
The episode of Kanhaiya had emerged with the events that took place at JNU, Delhi between February 9 to 11 this year. Along with Kanhaiya, the Students Union President of JNU, two other students were also charged under sedition and arrested.
We are all aware of these events in JNU since February 9 that had led to the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar. The seven video tapes, in which he had purportedly shouted anti-India slogans, and which were widely publicised by some TV channels, had been sent to a Lab in Hyderabad for analysis. It was established that at least two videos, widely publicised by some channels, had been doctored. It is these morphed videos that were used as evidence against Kanhaiya, and he was charged on the basis of these videos. It was also widely publicised by some other channels explaining technically how these videos were morphed. Official investigations by various agencies had established that Kanhaiya had neither shouted the anti-India slogans, nor had he any role in it. Legal experts the world over, eminent and veteran journalists and many top politicians had supported the fact that Kanhaiya was innocent and that he had done no wrong. Should Kanhaiya walk on fire to once again prove his innocence? I am sure even that will not satisfy the saffron brigade who are after his blood.
I have full confidence in the fact that this young man, whose age is less than half of my political life, is innocent and if proven otherwise, I declare that I will say goodbye to my political life. I am saying this from the depths of my heart.
Before entering Parliament for the first time, Narendra Modi had kissed the earth. I would like to ask him: will he be prepared to rub his nose in the ground, now that he and his party are sure to be proven wrong? Are they prepared to take up this challenge?
Giving me unsolicited advice, that I have a high position in politics and that I should not stoop down to expressing support to Kanhaiya is a blatant attempt to isolate Kanhaiya and play with his life. Their praise of me is in fact subversion.
Irrespective of her/his age, if anyone comes forward to fight against injustice and for a better India, I will extend my support to that person. Why the hell are you people so scared of him? Is it because the fearless young man is challenging Modi one-to-one? Youth are staying away from politics and even honest and hardworking young cadres are not able to climb up the political ladder. It is only children of the rich and powerful, along with top industrialists who are occupying seats in Parliament and other elected Houses. And politics for them is a part of their business, a tool to promote their interests. And Parliaments purpose is narrowed down to serve the interests of the rich and powerful. More than 80 per cent of the acts proposed to help the downtrodden and poor farmers are languishing and not able to see the light of the day. Women, who comprise 50 per cent of the population, could not get the 33 per cent reservation in Parliament and State legislatures. The relevant Bill is pending forever.
In this context, it is persons such as Lalit Modi and Vijay Mallya, who get all the political support to cheat this country and its people, while no one in power comes out honestly to support a forthright young man like Kanhaiya. I feel proud of this young man and I dont hesitate to extend whatever help he needs. This country needs thousands of Kanhaiyas. False pride should not come in the way of supporting the truth.
Kanhaiya, who was under police custody, was attacked in full public view before TV cameras by BJP goons, wearing black lawyers coats. Even the legal experts, deputed by the Supreme Court, were not spared. The police and all the official machinery were mute witnesses to this blatant violation of the law of this land. Students are now afraid of going to their class-rooms and an atmosphere of fear has been created. The Hyderabad Central University is a glaring example of this. It has been converted into a concentration camp, with the students deprived of food, water, electricity and communication facilities. The BJP had threatened that they will block Kanhaiya from entering Hyderabad and Vijayawada. The moment he landed in Hyderabad, every movement of his was fraught with danger. He was prevented from meeting Rohith Vemulas mother. Goons on motor bikes tried to pelt stones on the car in which Kanhaiya was travelling. At the closed gates of the University of Hyderabad, the BJP goons had blocked his path and tried to disrupt the meeting he was supposed to address. While he was addressing a meeting at Sundarayya Vijnana Kendram in Hyderabad, it was again the BJP goons who tried to throw chappals, though unsuccessfully, on Kanhaiya in the full presence of elderly citizens and the media.
Though permission was granted by the authorities to hold a meeting at Siddhartha College grounds, Venkaiah Naidus henchmen had seen to it that the permission was withdrawn. We had to shift the venue to a private function hall. Two hours before Kanhaiya was supposed to arrive, the BJP cadres tried to enter the hall with the intention of creating trouble. They had brought in goons from far-off places to enact this drama. I got a call from Delhi that the BJP was planning to organise an attack on Kanhaiya by some BJP women. By 4.30 pm, these women were already there in the meeting hall and got into an argument with the Red Shirt volunteers. Some BJP goons from other districts, who could not be immediately identified by the Vijayawada local comrades, sat in the front row and they tried to throw chappals at Kanhaiya as he rose to speak. Of course, they did not succeed as the Left cadres were alert. We had put up Kanhaiya at a hotel for the night, and even there, the BJP goons went and threatened the hotel management. This all-powerful government, with stalwarts such as Modi and Venkaiahseem to be scared of this little boy, Kanhaiya. Why was there so much snooping and subversion on him? Are you scared stiff that if he speaks, you will be exposed? Disrupting the meeting of rival parties does not exactly fit into the democratic culture.
The Constitution has guaranteed the right to assembly and expression of dissenting opinions for all citizens. If you try to snatch it away from us by misuse of power, the anger of the people will explode on your face.
Your blatant attempts at creating a frenzy of politically motivated false nationalism and your projection of Bharat Mata to symbolise the interests of the rich is sure to boomerang on you. This whole subversive activity of bringing in Hindutva fascism is being watched with anger by the people and they will teach you a bitter lesson.
With this subversive plan, these saffron gangs want to thwart the rising tide of opposition against them, by silencing Kanhaiya. At this critical juncture, should we remain mute spectators and allow them to carry on with their nefarious plan? When the police and administration had failed to protect Kanhaiya in the hallowed premises of the court, who will trust this government to protect the life of Kanhaiya? Only the committed Leftist move-ment has to take care of him at this critical juncture.
Should Kanhaiya be left alone to fend for himself? Is it a sin to protect and help him? You are saying that we will get painted in the same colour as Kanhaiya. I say that Kanhaiya is always on our sidehe is a committed Leftist cadre. By keeping him away from us, we will be throwing him to the saffrom wolves. Is that what you want, by cautioning me?
When the movement against the BJP misrule is picking up, we should put all our efforts by encouraging the newly emerging united student-youth movement. Any hesitation at this stage will prove suicidal to the Left in this country.
Hyderabad, March 28, 2016
Dr K. Narayana is the National Secretary, Communist Party of India.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > The Kolkata Flyover Collapse: Some Questions
Till the afternoon of Thursday, March 31, the Hyderabad-based construction firm Iragava-puru Venkata Reddy Construction Ltd., better known by its initials IVRCL, was not a very high-profile company. But the sudden collapse of a huge slab of a flyover the company was building in Burra Bazar, the thickly-congested business district of Kolkata, brought it into the limelight. Many vehicles and pedestrians got trapped under its debris. Till the time of writing, 26 deaths have been confirmed and nearly a hundred injured, some of whom are in a critical condition. The debris has still not been fully cleared but the stench emanating from there suggests more decomposed bodies may have been lying under it.
In election-bound West Bengal, the tragedy is a godsend to the Opposition parties, from the BJP at one end to the Congress and the CPI-M at the other. It has brought fresh grist to the propaganda mill of the Opposition. More than sympathy for the dead and the injured, there is a competition to derive the maximum political mileage out of the tragedy and put the ruling TMC and its leader, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, in the dock. In the present circumstances this is perhaps natural.
The criticism against the ruling party became more strident after Sudip Bandyopadhyay, leader of the TMCs parliamentary wing, added to the discomfort of his party by saying that he had found the design of the flyover defective and had informed the State Government accordingly. However, since much of the construction work had been done by the time, there was little that could be done to stop the construction and change the design. His statement was immediately contradicted by his party colleague Firhad Hakim, the State Urban Development Minister. What is rather intriguing is that not being a civil engineer, how could Bandyopadhyay detect the defect in the design?
Before taking a close look at the credibility and financial health of the IVRCL, certain facts need to be put on record. The Left Front Government gave the contract for the Rs 164 crore flyover project to the IVRCL in 2007, a good four years before it was voted out of power. The TMC Government inherited it. After the tragedy, the reaction of Ashok Bhattacharya, Urban Development Minister of the LF Government, was: I have no responsibility. The present UD Minister (Firhad Hakim) has to shoulder the responsibility. PCC chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury went a step ahead and demanded Hakims immediate arrest before any inquiry had been ordered.
The spokesman of the company, K. Pandu-ranga Rao, first blamed the Almighty. It is an act of Godwas his explanation. Faced with severe criticism for his evasive remark, he came out with another preposterous theory. It was a blast that had caused the collapse, he said, without a shred of evidence. The State Police went into action, raiding the companys offices in Kolkata and Hyderabad and arresting some senior executives and slapping the murder charge on them.
Now about the financial health of the company. A look at the Profit and Loss Account of IVRCL brings out some telltale facts. Its sales turnover has fallen from Rs 5651.45 crores in March 2011 to Rs 3117.42 crores in March 2015. During the same period, its total income fell from Rs. 5709.52 crores to Rs 3.217.75 crores; the operating profit declined from Rs 514.59 crores to (minus) Rs 29.27 crores; its reported net profit nosedived from Rs 157.9 crores to (minus) Rs 672.23 crores; and its earning per share (EPS) from Rs 5.91 crores to (minus) Rs 14.64 crores. (Source: www.moneycontrol.com/financials/ivrcl/profit-loss/IVR)
Due to the mounting losses, the company dismissed 23 per cent of its workforce as a cost-cutting measure in 2015. The previous year, it had offered Rs 4000 crores of assets for sale, hoping that if the sale went off, it would be able to liquidate its debt burden.
Meanwhile, after the Kolkata tragedy, more facts have come to light. The IVRCL was blacklisted by the Jharkhand Government in 2015 for doing work haphazardly. The Jharkhand Government served a notice on the company demanding Rs 750 crores for losses and damages caused. Earlier the company faced a CBI probe into the allegation of its paying a bribe of Rs 22 crores to former Chief Minister Madhu Koda for bagging a contract for rural electrification. However, the probe had to be closed for lack of adequate evidence.
Way back in 2011, the CBI filed a case against the company for irregularities in a tsunami housing project in Puducherry that resulted in a loss of Rs 35 crores to the Puducherry Government and the Union Government.
Both the LF Government, which awarded the Kolkata flyover project to the IVRCL, and the successor Trinamul Government are answer-able to the peoplethe first for giving the contract in the first place to a tainted and sick company with such a track record and the TMC Government for not terminating the contract, though the work on the project was getting unconscionably delayed. After the accident, a company spokesman admitted that in the nine years from 2007 to 2016, they could complete only 55 per cent of the work or half the job. Another half remains to completed,
Now the blame-game and mutual recrimi-nations have begun, with each side trying to pass the buck on the other, while the bereaved families mourn their dead. An inquiry will of course be conducted and responsibility fixed. Some may be found guilty. But the far bigger question is: will this disaster put an end to the unending series of such disasters once and for all? Will private greed have the better of public safety in future also?
The author was a correspondent of The Hindu in Assam. He also worked in Patriot, Compass (Bengali), Mainstream. A veteran journalist, he comes from a Gandhian family and was intimately associated with the RCPI leader, Pannalal Das Gupta.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Money Makes the Mare Go
That the Indians have stashed money abroad was known even when I began my journalism career almost 60 years ago. The West German Government once provided us with the list of depositors. But nothing came out of it because the people involved enjoyed political patronage. The much-hidden Swiss accounts were also given to the government when it made an official request. No action followed since it was once again seen that the people who had kept their money were influential.
I recall the Union Home Ministry once making an inquiry into the foreign funding of political parties after a furore in Parliament. The report was never revealed, but it was given out unofficially that all political parties, including the Left, had their accounts in West Germany or Switzerland.
The revelations made now about the offshore investments by Indian businessmen and indus-trialists are in the same category. One must congratulate the intrepid journalists for this. After talking to the journalists, I found that it had taken more than six months for them to collect information and collate it from here and there.
Understandably, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set up a panel of officials from the Income Tax Department, RBI and Enforcement Directorate to probe the matter and apportion responsibility. Yet, nothing concrete would come out of it because the persons connected with the dealings have a political clout.
Parliament may take up the matter since the entire nation is horrified over the disclosures. Yet again, the matter would not go beyond accusations and counter-accusations since all political parties are involved in some way or the other. Parties have to oil their set-ups and they have to have some source to do so. The bane of the problem is the money needed during elections. Election to Assembly constituencies is estimated to cost Rs 10,000 crores. Naturally, the Lok Sabha elections would need several more crores of rupees. Even individual voters are being paid in cash or kind by different political parties in a bid to woo them. For example, Tamil Nadu, which is going to the polls next month, has already had the maximum number of arrests connected with pre-poll unaccounted money.
Many parliamentary committees have gone into the funding with the purpose of reducing the expenditure. Instead, the expenses have gone up. The Election Commission has banned publicity of several ills which were spotted during electioneering. But the overall situation has worsened, not improved. In fact, all political parties, particularly the ruling ones, use all kinds of methods to win elections.
Power has come to mean not only authority but also money for the cadres. Therefore, no method is mean enough to win. The manner in which caste is used makes a mockery of free balloting. The Constitution debars all these practices but still the parties use castes and sub-castes because this, apart from money, influences the voters the most.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitelys statement that there are no holy cows for them is all right as it goes. Yet, he knows that those who finance political parties cannot be touched because they are the ones who sustain them. How can a political party cut the hand that feeds it?
The Election Commission in its various reports has complained that a candidate spends more than the limit laid down. According to the limits defined, an Assembly candidate should not spend more than Rs 28 lakhs while the Lok Sabhas limit is Rs 70 lakhs per constituency. However, candidates spend many times more. Since there is no limit placed on the expenditure by political parties, the Election Commission is helpless in taking action when it finds that a candidate for the Assembly or Lok Sabha does not stay within the limit.
The accounts which the legislators submit to the Election Commission are all cooked up because they find it not possible to adhere to the rules if they have to cover the constituencies. Several vehicles and volunteers are required to reach every part of the constituency and yet the candidates find it difficult to cover all of them. The television medium has made things easier. But a candidate does not want his message go out as an advertisement. One, it costs a lot of money and, two, the viewers do not like canvassing through advertisements.
If the Prime Minister can live with statements of bogus election expenses, he can very well accept the offshore investments which are unethical but not illegal. After all, this is their way of avoiding paying high taxes in India. High taxation in the country is again the reason why businessmen and others prefer to keep their money abroad. The government has declared amnesty many a time and made it attractive for businessmen and industrialists to disclose their assets abroad. But how to make them keep money at home and pay taxes is the problem.
I recall that India was facing acute foreign exchange crisis when I was the High Commissi-oner at London in 1990. I made a personal appeal to the people of Indian origin living there that the country which they called Bharat Mata required their contribution urgently. But the request fell on deaf ears. They were looking for good returns. Once they were offered bonds, which would ensure high returns in foreign exchange, they were too willing to invest. For them, the love of the country had to be translated into money.
By all means, the Prime Minister should probe the offshore investments. And he is justified in doing so. But he should realise that the investors that found tax havens abroad will find some other ways to evade. In fact, a probe is needed to find out why the Indians prefer money to the interests of their motherland. For this, mere slogans like Bharat Mata ki Jai will not help. The RSS, which has coined the slogan, should find ways how to evoke that kind of love. But how can it do so when it doesnt believe in a pluralistic society, the ethos of India?
The author is a veteran journalist renowned not only in this country but also in our neighbouring states of Pakistan and Bangladesh where his columns are widely read. His website is www.kuldipnayar.com
Archbishops Father is Not God! What if Jesus had a DNA Test?
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby following a DNA test to put press rumours to rest was instead shocked to discover that his real father turned out to be someone other than the man who had raised him from birth, as apparently his mother had slept with Winston Churchill's last private secretary whilst drunk resulting in the conception of Justin, all of which was just days before her marriage to the man who Justin would think was his father for 60 years.
The truth is that Justin's experience is far from unique, where literally for thousands of years perhaps as many as 1/4 of children were unbeknown brought up by men who in fact where not the child's biological father, a reality that in the vast majority of cases could rarely ever be questioned up until quite recently when paternity DNA testing became widely available.
So what if Jesus Had a DNA Test? Would his DNA reveal Gods finger print or would his Y chromosome point to a particular mortal man?
In answering the fundamental question of why Jesus become Jesus Christ we have to go back to the beginning, to how things were at the time in Judea under Roman military occupation. The truth is as tends to be the case right upto the present day across the worlds many war zones and lands of occupation is the fact that soldiers tend to RAPE, and so was the case in Judea of being common for Roman soldiers to rape native Jewish women and where children born of such incidences rather then be labeled as the offspring of usually unknown Roman solider's, instead the families survived their ordeal by bringing up the children as gifts from God, Gods children, God as the father of the child.
Of course everyone understood the truth, but this is how families, society coped with the Roman occupation, where children would be brought up to believe that they were a gift from God who was their father, only to slowly realise the truth as they encountered hostility from other Jews, as being the bastard offspring of Roman soldiers and thus were deemed not to be real Jews.
This also explains why so many half Jews rebelled against Jewish elite that populated the temple and synagogues, embarking on their own diverging religious paths in an attempt to reinvest the Jewish faith so that not only were they accepted as equals but representative of a truer version of Judaism rather than that offered by the Rabbi's. And so it is clear from the Gospels of Jesus's rebellion against Judaism, as he sought to find a place for his kind (half Jews) that numbered in the many thousands as they straddled the Jewish world and the Roman world.
This also explains why the Jewish elite were so vehemently against Jesus, all the way to the point of demanding his death by crucifixion that the Roman occupation complied with their requests. For Jesus, given his origins was never deemed to be a real Jew by the Jewish elite, who hounded him his whole life, where the greater his following became then the greater became their persecution of him and so increased Jesus's rebellion in his diversion from Jewish doctrine towards what would become a new religion.
So Who was Jesus's Father?
We'll I am not the first to offer a theory of origins of the Roman origins of Jesus's father, far from it as many have investigated the fathers probable identity for decades, investigations coalesced around identifying roman soldiers around at the time of Jesus's conception.
Jesus, son of Pantera
About 177 AD the Greek philosopher Celsus, in his book The True Word, expressed what appears to have been the consensus Jewish opinion about Jesus, that his father was a Roman soldier called Pantera. Pantera means Panther and was a fairly common name among Roman soldiers. The rumor is repeated in the Talmud and in medieval Jewish writings where Jesus is referred to as Yeshu ben Pantera.
In 1859 a gravestone surfaced in Germany for a Roman soldier called Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera, whose unit Cohors I Sagittariorum had served in Judea before Germany romantic historians have hypothesized this to be Jesus father, especially as Abdes (servant of God) suggests a Jewish background.
It appears this First Cohort of Archers moved from Palestine to Dalmatia in 6 AD, and to the Rhine in 9 AD. Pantera came from Sidon, on the coast of Phoenicia just west of Galilee, presumably enlisted locally. He served in the army for 40 years until some time in the reign of Tiberius. On discharge he would have been granted citizenship by the Emperor (and been granted freedom if he had formerly been a slave), and added the Emperors name to his own. Tiberius ruled from 14 AD to 37 AD. Panteras 40 years of service would therefore have started between 27 BC and 4 BC. As Pantera would probably have been about 18 when he enlisted, it means he was likely born between 45 BC and 22 BC. He could have been as old as 38 or as young as 15 at the time of Jesus conception in the summer of 7 BC. In 6 AD when Jesus was 12, Judas of Galilee led a popular uprising that captured Sepphoris, the capital of Galilee. The uprising was crushed by the Romans some four miles north of Nazareth. It is possible (and appealing to lovers of historical irony) that Pantera and Joseph fought on opposite sides. As Joseph is never heard of again he may well have been killed in the battle, or have been among the 2,000 Jewish rebels crucified afterwards. So Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera is indeed a possibility as Jesus father. The only thing we know for certain is that Marys husband Joseph wasnt the father, and that Mary was already pregnant when they married. It could have been rape, or Mary may have been a wild young teen who fell for a handsome man in a uniform, even if he was part of an occupying army. It happens.
Once you understand who Jesus's father probably was then you will read the Jesus story, the Gospels in a whole different light, for it is a story of rejection, of a half Jew standing between being Jewish and Roman, who was pulled and tugged in both directions, but in the end as a consequence of rejection, marginalisation and persecution by Jewish society rebelled against and rejected Judaism ultimately pushing Jesus to lay the ground work for what would come to be known as Christianity, a separate religion. None of which would have happened if Jesus's father had NOT been Jewish!
By N Walayat
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk
Copyright 2005-2016 Marketoracle.co.uk (Market Oracle Ltd). All rights reserved.
2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.
Deportations to Begin - Headlines from Trump's America 2017
These are headlines from the Boston Globe, April 9, 2017:
DEPORTATIONS TO BEGIN President Trump calls for tripling of ICE force; riots continue.
The $400 billion deportation program promises to be one of the most disruptive government actions attempted since desegregation. Economists estimated ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] would need more than 900,000 agents to complete the deportations in the next two years.
These are headlines from the Boston Globe, April 9, 2017:
Thousands of protesters remain camped outside the Trump International Hotel and around the fence of the White House ... The scent of tear gas pervades Lafayette Square.
Already in California, armed ICE agents confronted 30 illegal strawberry pickers on a Santa Barbara County farm and bused them to a detention center to await prosecution and a government chartered flight back to Mexico. State officials held a press conference shortly after the raid to express concern about the economic impact if dishes go unwashed in the kitchens of San Francisco restaurants and if our $3 billion strawberry crop is ultimately left to rot.
MARKETS SINK AS TRADE WAR LOOMS.
Worldwide stocks plunged again Friday, completing the worst month on record as trade war with both China and Mexico seem imminent. Markets from the Dow to the FTSE to the Nikkei have sunk on speculation that China is dumping some of its US Treasury holdings after the Trump administration announced tariffs as high as 45 percent for all Chinese imports and 35 percent for some Mexican goods.
US SOLDIERS REFUSE ORDERS TO KILL ISIS FAMILIES.
The military faces a crisis of good order and discipline, Pentagon officials said yesterday, after days of widespread unrest in the ranks over White House orders to kill relatives of ISIS militants Two militants were killed in a firefight, but three women and two children were left alive, contrary to orders issued directly by President Trump.
When the president promised to take out families of radical Islamic terrorists, he meant it, a senior administration official told reporters traveling on Air Force One. We have a civilian controlled military for a reason.
NEW LIBEL LAW TARGETS ABSOLUTE SCUM IN PRESS Legislation could supplant state laws.
A Republican controlled Congress last night passed sweeping changes to libel law in the United States, moving the bill to the desk of the new president who has promised to sign it.
So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, a lawsuit has a better chance of prevailing.
Seventy to 75 percent of reporters are absolutely dishonest. Absolute scum. Remember that. Scum. Scum. Totally dishonest people, Trump said in a ceremony on Capitol Hill with WWE star Hulk Hogan, who won a $140 million lawsuit against Gawker.com for release of a sex tape. And I havent even gotten to privacy yet.
BANK GLITCH HALTS BORDER WALL WORK
Construction on the new border wall with Mexico stopped suddenly on Friday, dealing a major setback to one of President Trumps key campaign promises, after Mexico refused to pay.
TRUMP ON NOBEL PRIZE SHORT LIST
His feat? Healing a 1,385yearold schism between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, which has fueled bloody conflicts across the globe for centuries.
***
These front-page headlines and stories were printed on Saturday, April 9, 2016 by the Boston Globe in a post-dated satirical April 9, 2017 issue. It depicts Donald Trumps America and ... what might happen if the GOP frontrunner can put his ideas into practice, his words into action what America looks like with Trump in the White House.
"It is easy to find historical antecedents, wrote the Globe editorial board in an opinion piece. The rise of demagogic strongmen is an all too common phenomenon on our small planet. And what marks each of those dark episodes is a failure to fathom where a leader's vision leads, to carry rhetoric to its logical conclusion.
"The toxic mix of violent intimidation, hostility to criticism, and explicit scapegoating of minorities shows a political movement is taking hold in America," the editors write. "If Trump were a politician running such a campaign in a foreign country right now, the US State Department would probably be condemning him."
The GOP must stop Trump. "Donald J. Trumps vision for the future of our nation is as deeply disturbing as it is profoundly un-American."
***
Fascism is rising in Europe and it rising in America in the names of Donald Trump.and Ted Cruz. War with the world is probable under Wall Street patron and uber war-hawk Hillary Clinton.
From sleeper cells of militants, sovereign citizens, confederates, gun rights activists, anarcho-capitalists, truthers, 2nd Amen constitutionalists and far-right Rand Paul libertarians are joined Ted Cruz theocratic religionists mounting a historic challenge to American democratic institutions, civil rights, human rights, secularism, press freedom, the environment indeed to the very Constitution and Bill of Rights they proclaim are abridged by everyone but themselves.
Americans are being duly forewarned. The choice will be theirs in November, but with it comes their responsibility for any and all future outcomes for better or worse.
Sources:
The GOP must stop Trump. Editorial Board. Boston Globe. April 9, 2016.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/04/09/etrump/JPOQJZK9hUBdBx5rdPkWFK/story.html
(c) 2016 Michael T Bucci. All Rights reserved.
Michael T Bucci is a retired public relations executive currently living in New England. He has authored nine books on practical spirituality collectively titled The Cerithous Material.
2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.
The Curious Case of Irans Stock Market
The recent removal of sanctions against Iran will prove to serve as a major economic catalyst for Iran, and investors should begin to start noting the opportunities of Irans stock market and economy. Iran is by no means a small contributor to the global economy, and apart from the countrys ability to thrive amid low oil prices, it is also a key global contributor in the following areas:
Worlds 4th largest cement producer
Worlds 18th largest automaker, and one of the largest automakers in Asia
Worlds 14th largest steel producer
The Institute of International Finance projected that the removal of sanctions would result in 6% GDP growth, and Iran previously delivered 1.4% growth amid the burden of sanctions. On top of this, Irans stock market rallied strongly after the removal of sanctions in January.
Stock Market Overview
Irans stock market is on par with other frontier markets in many ways, and trades at a strong discount to other frontier markets:
Irans stock market has over 600 listed companies, with a total market capitalization of approximately $140 billion. It is the 5th largest stock market in the Middle East, and easily on par with other frontier markets.
The average P/E for its stock market is 5.6, and it offers an average dividend yield of 12.6%.
The stock exchange consists of a large number of companies in diversified industries outside of oil production.
Index futures and options may be launched in a year, which will include the ability for investors to short stocks.
Trading is carried out on Saturday-Wednesday from 9 a.m to 12:30 p.m.
There are also a large number of mutual funds and an index linked ETF, for investors wishing to utilize a fund of fund approach.
Challenges
Despite the removal of sanctions, a large number of barriers still exist for investors, primarily for US investors.
Only Non US investors can invest in Iran directly.
Banks are not connected to SWIFT , presenting difficulties for transferring money out of the country.
Foreigners can not buy shares of all companies. Sanctions remain in place for around 200 businesses and individuals, some of which are connected to listed equity.
Industry Approach
I filtered through certain areas and found strong value investment opportunities in the oil, cement, banking, and pharmaceutical industries.
Industry Average P/E for Observed Companies Pharmaceutical 6.4 Cement 5.3 Oil 4.2 Banks 4.3
Source: Tehran Stock Exchange
Oil Stocks: Irans ability to thrive in a low oil price environment certainly makes this industry worth noting, as the stocks I noted trade at an approximate 25% discount to the index. Accounting for approximately 10% of the countrys GDP, this sector is a key driver of the economy, and Iran has already proven its ability to have a strong global impact on oil prices.
Automotive Stocks: The automotive industry is the countrys 2nd largest sector, and Iran has strong potential to serve as an automotive manufacturing hub in Asia. However, the valuation for stocks that I observed was very high.
Cement Stocks: Iran has an approximate 1.83% global share in cement production, and exports cement to approximately 24 countries. The stocks I observed trade at an approximate 5.4% discount to the index.
Banking Stocks: Valuation for banking stocks is low, trading at a 23.2% discount to the index, yet like many frontier markets, the issue of non performing loans needs to be reconciled. NPLs were 13.4% as of June last year.
Pharmaceutical Stocks: Irans pharmaceutical industry has thrived amid previous sanctions, and this seems to be one of the most unique, high growth opportunities the country offers. Valuation is reasonable, as 46% of the 27 companies I looked at are trading at a discount to the index.
Taking a Closer Look at Irans Pharmaceutical Industry
Irans pharmaceutical industry has ample room for domestic growth, and much to offer the world in terms of exports:
Iran is the largest manufacturer of generic drugs in the Middle East and Africa, and much of this region is reliant of imports.
Large companies such as Novartis, Sanofi, and Novo Nordisk were already active in Iran during sanctions.
Iran is developing its first private industrial pharmaceutical city with over $2 billion in investments, including a large number of research and development centers, a central lab, chemical and biotechnology medicine producers, and distribution facilities. 100 companies will be based in this center.
Iran produces 90% of its medicine, and the Ministry of Health is targeting full self sufficiency in the future.
Peace and Mutual Prosperity
I am pleased that these sanctions have been removed, and have hopes that the opening of Irans market will prove to be prosperous for the country and those who choose to invest in Iran in the future. Iran offers bar none value to frontier market investors, and this new development should certainly be noted for the future as a strong catalyst for Irans economy, and a unique opportunity for funds investing in frontier Asia. For the time being, the most rational solution would be observing locally managed funds in Iran to invest in.
Dylan Waller is a Contributor for Seeking Alpha and Smartkarma, and a Macroeconomic Researcher for the crowdsourced consultancy Wikistrat. His research focuses on frontier and emerging markets, with a primary focus on the strategic advantages of Vietnam, Pakistan, India, The Philippines, and Mongolia.
Email: dylan@nomadicequity.com
Website: www.nomadicequity.com
Copyright 2016 Dylan Waller - 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.
Do todays schoolchildren have the same school experiences we did, or in this day of air-conditioned comfort and stark fortress-like enclosures that isolate them from the world, do those experiences belong only in our aging memories?
Think back to when school was a grand building; but of course, we never noticed that as kids. We took for granted the hardwood floors; the grand double-hung windows which the teacher would raise or lower depending on the weather; the three-panel and windowed wooded doors whose hinges creaked when you closed them; the real mirrors over the sinks in the bathrooms.
Do you remember how the caress of the warm spring sunshine, the tease of the gentle breeze and the lullaby of the cicadas would lull you to a stupor right there at your desk?
The teacher would be writing on the blackboard, her voice becoming only barely noticed background sound in this symphony that was a spring day, alive outside the wide-open windows.
In every few classrooms there was a stuck window which wouldnt open. Wed feel slighted that one of several in that room was closed permanently. The windows in modern school dont even have a way to be opened, do they?
Jammed windows were pretty minor in the list of things that wouldnt work quite right anymore in the elegant old building, but that was just life. We accepted it. Once, the floor lifted Joe Perrys desk right up off itself.
The hardwood floor right under Joes desk in the algebra room had a hump in it. As the year ticked along, the several side-by-side boards which formed the long hump rose taller and taller, shifting tectonic plates forming mountain peaks. One Monday as we entered the classroom, he pointed out that his desk was now lifted off the floor by the floor.
It was pretty exciting the culmination of the evolution wed been following all year.
It was a let-down a few weeks later when that floor area was patched with boring, fresh light-colored, perfectly plane wood.
Somehow, the chalk dust seemed more alive in the hot weather. There always was chalk dust, of course, but it seemed to dance around more in the air when the air was stuffy, lazy and full with heat.
Those memories we can reflect upon with nostalgia. There are some its easier to gloss over.
Through the first two months of sixth grade at middle school, I still remember, the intense, burying, bullying, resistance-is-futile torture of the summer heat kept us down. We got out of school at noon each day those first two months straight, which was mandated when the temperatures reached above 95 degrees.
Then there were snow days that cost us classroom time, too. There were no cell phones or walkie-talkies then on buses (which were driven by high school kids).
Wed be riding along to school and then some kid at a bus stop would come running out of the house and proclaim, No school! Its snowing! The jubilant junior messenger had heard on the AM station that a snowflake was seen somewhere in the county, so school is cancelled.
Everyone on the bus would cheer, and the bus driver simply would turn around and drop us all off in the order in which he had picked us up no confirmation needed. Plus, since the school buses already had run, as they say, it was counted as a school day and did not have to be made up.
Times, they are a-changing, and if you walked into a modern school now that is, if you made it past the security check which includes having your photograph taken and applied to a badge made just for you what would it feel like in there?
Sure, maybe they are learning more, but will todays kids ever have memories of gentle breezes and hypnotizing sunshine?
An upcoming early childhood education conference will highlight issues facing those who are in the business of teaching young children.
The conference will be held from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 16, in Frith Exhibit Hall at Patrick Henry Community College, and is a partnership between the colleges early childhood education department and Smart Beginnings of Martinsville-Henry County.
This conference is tailor made to meet the needs of early childhood educators in our community, said Kristin Dulaney, assistant professor of education and early childhood. Over the last few months, weve talked extensively with area educators to determine which speakers and vendors to invite that would directly address concerns or challenges that educators in our community are facing right now.
Speakers include members of the Blue Ridge Autism and Achievement Center (BRAAC), STEM Sprouts, Virginia Infant and Toddler Specialist Network, Piedmont Arts, the Virginia Museum of Natural History and more. Topics will include: working with children affected by autism; adding science, math, and technology to your lessons; integrating the arts; effective lesson planning; working with families; integrating physical activities; and more.
Smart Beginnings, an early childhood coalition led by the United Way of Henry County-Martinsville, works to build a strong early childhood infrastructure to provide comprehensive service delivery and support to families, child care providers, partners and the community.
The event is free and open to all local childcare providers, but registration is required by Friday. The event will feature presentations from speakers and vendors that impact and benefit early childhood educators. Lunch will be provided by PHCC Culinary department, and those registered will be entered to win door prizes. To register, call Smart Beginnings Early Education Coordinator, Ruth Anne Collins, at (276) 403-5528.
Theres a mysterious marker at Forest Park Country Club that likely has baffled more than a few golfers or at least those with a bad enough slice to land a ball near it.
If one is facing Lake Lanier while on the Forest Park property, one will spot the marker on the slope to the right of the spillway. It reads, in full, Here lie fifty unidentified dead moved from a point 300 yards northeast Mar. 12, 1957.
Who, exactly, is buried on the hillside?
Henry County Archivist Desmond Kendrick of the Martinsville-Henry County History Museum said that there are three main theories two that probably are not accurate, and one that likely is.
The remains of the 50 unidentified dead were discovered, Kendrick said, while Lake Lanier was being constructed between 1955 and about 1957. In all likelihood, he said, the construction crew did not know the graves were there until they stumbled across them during the excavation process.
The first theory about the unidentified bodies, Kendrick said, is that they were Native Americans. However, he said, this theory is unlikely, because Native American graves would have been hundreds of years old and the remains would have been almost indiscernible.
Additionally, he said, Lake Lanier is a valley, and Native Americans generally buried their dead in burial mounds on hills. The dead would be buried in a spiral going up the sides of the hill, with the higher-ranking members of their society buried closer to the top of the hill.
The second theory, Kendrick said, is that the unidentified bodies were members of the Moravian Church.
The Moravians are a Protestant religious sect who passed through the Mulberry area around the 1720s, Kendrick said, traveling from Winston-Salem, N.C. to establish their religion in different locations.
They supposedly camped here on Mulberry Creek, which is still about a mile from here, Kendrick said. The theory was that the Moravians had some kind of a disease they caught when they were here, and a bunch of them could have died, and they were buried up here on this hillside.
While its possible that the Moravians could have lost 50 people at once while passing through the area, Kendrick said he believes it is unlikely.
In all likelihood, he said, the unidentified dead are more recent than either the Native Americans or the Moravians.
That leads into the third theory, and the one Kendrick believes most likely to be true: The 50 dead likely were slaves owned by Martha Patsey Henry Fontaine, daughter of Founding Father Patrick Henry.
Thats what I really think, Kendrick said. Patrick Henry owned this property, and his land, at the time, went up to the top of the hill. It encompassed all of Lake Lanier. His daughter Patsy owned what he called his little plantation on Leatherwood Creek, and it was almost 3,000 acres. (Patrick Henry) owned 13,879 acres in the timeframe he lived here for four years (1780-1784).
Some of the graves, Kendrick said, also could have belonged to slaves of Samuel Hairston. Even after the Civil War, Kendrick said, many former slaves continued to live along Mulberry Creek.
Unfortunately, Kendrick said, much of the record-keeping from that era especially pertaining to slaves is spotty.
While the marker mentions 50 unidentified dead, Kendrick believes that there are likely more graves near the site of the marker. On the hill fairly close to Corn Tassel Trail, there are faint depressions consistent with gravesites, he said.
Old gravesites are not uncommon in Henry County and Martinsville, Kendrick said, but the gravesite near Lake Lanier is unique because of the number of bodies and because of the consideration given to the dead.
I dont know of another stone in Henry County where they actually moved a cemetery and put up a marker for it, Kendrick said.
Kendrick spends a great deal of time documenting historic graves in the area to make sure they are not lost to time. His interest in history began as a child, he said, growing up in an old country store owned by his grandparents. He used to sit around the woodstove with the older folks, listening to them swap tales.
I always say that I had to do the history of the area, because I had to learn what parts of the tales were true and what parts werent true, he said.
Kendrick invites area residents with more information on the Lake Lanier marker to e-mail him at hcarchivist@gmail.com.
WYTHEVILLE In a high school auditorium plastered with campaign signs, 9th District Republicans picked two Ted Cruz supporters and one Donald Trump backer Saturday to serve as their national convention delegates.
The vote marks a disappointment for Trump, who won big in the district on Super Tuesday, but has been out-organized by Cruz in many of the early contests to line up convention delegates.
Most delegates, including those elected Saturday, will be bound on the first nomination ballot at the Republican National Convention based on their states primary results.
But in the event that vote isnt decisive a possibility in the current race delegates will be freed up to vote for the candidate of their choice on subsequent ballots.
The 9th District Republican Committee convention Saturday was a crucial first test in Virginia of the scramble to secure delegate slots.
The congressional district was the first in the state to pick its GOP national delegates and was also home to the deepest wells of Trump support.
I think it sets the tone, said Jordan Labiosa, a New Castle Town Council member and Cruz supporter who was among the three tapped for national delegate.
Cruz was at his greatest disadvantage here in Southwest Virginia, Labiosa noted, but still won two-thirds of the seats.
Hes stronger elsewhere in the state, Labiosa said, adding the district vote suggests pretty strongly that Cruz will end up leading in Virginia delegates.
Trump supporters made a push to lock down all three seats Saturday. But Jack Morgan, chairman of Trumps district campaign team and a former head of the 9th District GOP, said he wasnt surprised by the results.
I think they brought a few more people out than we did, he said. ... Trump supporters arent party people. They dont do these things, take Saturdays and come out to conventions. Thats not what they do.
Trump still remains the favorite candidate of the people, Morgan argued, but party insiders are aligning against him.
The district convention was a nearly all-day affair held at George Wythe High School. In all, 227 party activists whod been pre-certified showed up to vote, braving an early morning snowfall to make it to the event.
In addition to Labiosa, Kyle Kilgore of Scott County and Tucker Davis of Buchanan County were elected national delegates.
Davis, a Trump supporter and western field director for his campaign, said in early remarks at the meeting that delegates should reflect the will of 9th District voters who went nearly 48 percent for Trump during last months primary.
To do otherwise would be a spit in the eye to those voters, he said.
But Cruz supporters, in interviews, countered that long-standing party rules allow for this leeway in the event that no candidate comes into the national convention with enough votes to sew up the nomination on the first ballot.
More than half of the districts voters didnt back Trump in the primary, they noted, and pointed out that presidential election math nationally has continued to shift as the field of candidates has narrowed.
At the end of the day, this is the process, said Kilgore, a Cruz supporter and Saturdays top vote-getter. Its the whole reason we have the convention.
Tamara Neo a Trump supporter who came in fifth in the delegate vote and will be an alternate at the national convention said she remains firmly focused on a Trump victory and noted he still has a path to get enough votes in the remaining state primaries to lock down the convention nomination on a first ballot.
That is absolutely still a reasonable, viable outcome, she said. And it will put an end to all this discussion.
State economic officials pilloried the EB-5 immigrant investor green card program when Terry McAuliffe planned to use it to fund an electric car plant in Virginia, but with him occupying the Executive Mansion, their resistance has softened.
Under the program signed into law more than 25 years ago, foreigners who invest $500,000 to $1 million in U.S. projects are eligible for green cards, or permission to emigrate to the United States. But the program hasnt always paid off for investors, three-fourths of them Chinese, and has been vulnerable to fraud, prompting warnings from the Securities and Exchange Commission and debate in Congress over whether EB-5 should be fixed or shelved.
Virginia Economic Development Partnership officials, including the agencys CEO at the time, raised concerns about EB-5 in 2009, when McAuliffe, fresh off a Democratic gubernatorial primary defeat, approached the state about locating a GreenTech Automotive plant in the Old Dominion. The project, which was to be funded through EB-5 investments, never got off the ground in Virginia.
GreenTech and a claim by a partnership official that EB-5 was a visa-for-sale scheme were hot topics during McAuliffes successful 2013 gubernatorial run. Halfway through McAuliffes term, the partnership has discussed EB-5 with a one-time ally of the governors.
Simone Williams, an immigration lawyer who worked on the GreenTech project, met with a partnership official last year about EB-5 just as investigators were finishing a federal inspector generals report citing McAuliffes unprecedented access to the countrys top ranked immigration official in pursuit of investor green cards.
Williams has worked alongside Tony Rodham, the brother of Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton and a principal in the firm that solicited EB-5 investors for GreenTech.
Partnership officials said the agency has no written policy on EB-5. Asked to explain the agencys position on the program, officials said they are not involved in its implementation and are not concerned about whether companies use EB-5. During the years of McAuliffes term that have passed, none has, as far as partnership officials know.
Nor has McAuliffe prescribed a policy on EB-5, said Maurice Jones, secretary of commerce and trade.
Citing McAuliffes schedule, a spokesman for the governor said last week that he would be unavailable for an interview about EB-5.
Critics say programhas serious flaws
Signed into law by President George H.W. Bush as part of the Immigration Act of 1990, EB-5 languished until the recession, falling well short of its limit of 10,000 green cards annually. The tide began to turn when lending tightened in the wake of the housing market collapse. Last fiscal year, EB-5 applications reached a record 14,373.
With heavier use of the program came tales of deals gone bad, including the collapse of a $900 million hotel and convention center project outside Chicago. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ordered Anshoo Sethi, the principal in the deal, to repay investors $147 million held in escrow. He has pleaded guilty to wire fraud.
That case, EB-5 critics say, is just one example of the programs flaws.
Investors sometimes are made promises that cant be kept, including guarantees that theyll receive a green card. In fact, green cards can be approved only by federal immigration officials, who review applicants for security concerns, among other things. In other cases, part of the programs intent to draw investment money into depressed or rural areas has been subverted.
Projects in so-called target employment areas rural areas or areas of high unemployment require only $500,000 investments rather than $1 million. But promoters of EB-5 deals sometimes have engaged in gerrymandering to pull investment money into affluent areas. The hotel project in Chicago was an example.
U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, last month said EB-5 is deeply flawed, without adequate oversight and has veered far away from congressional intent.
His counterpart in the lower chamber agreed.
This program is in desperate need of statutory and regulatory reform, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke County, said in a prepared statement. At the minimum, the investment amount should be increased, gerrymandering should be curtailed, and national security concerns should be addressed in order to reform this troubled program.
Other critics say the program unfairly favors rich foreigners.
The right to emigrate should not be for sale, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, said last month.
Thats how Liz Povar, a high-ranking partnership official, appeared to view the program in 2009 when her agency began considering GreenTech Automotives plans to use EB-5 investments.
I still cant get my head around this being anything other than a visa-for-sale scheme, she wrote in an email to a colleague.
Others at the agency raised questions about whether GreenTech could deliver on its proposals.
The future governors team has no demonstrated ability to run an automotive company, Mike Lehmkuhler, vice president of business attraction, wrote in an email.
GreenTech won incentives and went forward with a $60 million electric car project in Mississippi.
The partnerships criticisms of EB-5 and GreenTech, meanwhile, remained largely private for roughly three years, until McAuliffe began making another run for governor. By December 2012, with a new CEO, Martin Briley, leading the partnership, the project had become a campaign issue, sparking open records requests from reporters.
Several days after seeking to arrange a meeting with McAuliffe, with the emails about to become public, Briley sent a written apology to GreenTech CEO Charles Wang for the agencys remarks criticizing the carmaker and EB-5.
Some of those same critics, including Povar and Lehmkuhler, still are employed at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, a state agency that operates independently of the governor but regularly works with him and his secretary of commerce and trade on the administration of such incentives as the Commonwealths Opportunity Fund.
McAuliffe, meanwhile, has confronted his own problems with EB-5, and the program came back to cast a shadow over his ultimately successful second run for governor.
Federal investigators examined a series of incidents in which McAuliffe rattled cages to break apart what he saw as bureaucratic EB-5 logjams to achieve faster and favorable processing decisions. In an episode made public in their final report, federal investigators said McAuliffe screamed and cursed at Alejandro Mayorkas, the chief administrator of the EB-5 program who headed U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Mayorkas captured some of McAuliffes words on voice mail. He said the pressure began in 2011 and ran for two years.
In 2013, as the two men passed each other in a crowd, McAuliffe took a public shot at Mayorkas.
Your agency is killing the project, McAuliffe said, according to the investigative report.
In that document, made public in late March 2015, the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security upheld whistle-blower complaints from agency employees who said Mayorkas succumbed to outside influence and intervened improperly on behalf of politically powerful stakeholders, including McAuliffe, then board chairman of GreenTech. Mayorkas actions created a perception within the EB-5 program that certain individuals had special access and would receive special consideration, the report found.
Backer says programan excellent tool
Whether EB-5 investors are pouring cash into Virginia today isnt clear.
A Shanghai law firm posted a Facebook ad last year soliciting EB-5 money for UniTao Pharmaceuticals a few months after the Chinese-based company said it was idling the Petersburg factory where it planned to open a plant. The company had not yet collected an expected $1 million state grant for the $22.5 million project. Efforts to reach UniTao were unsuccessful.
Partnership officials are mostly mum today on EB-5, although a recent open-government request for agency documents regarding the program resulted in hundreds of pages of records being withheld because they contained proprietary information about funding plans for projects. Two business plans dated in the past three months are in the mix.
It is up to prospective clients and developers to determine if there is value in using EB-5, or other federal resources, to help advance financing for specific projects, partnership spokeswoman Suzanne Clark said.
Asked to address the apparent shift in sentiment since the partnerships criticism of EB-5 six years ago, Clark declined.
Jones said if a company planned to use EB-5 that wouldnt factor into the agencys decision-making on whether to approve incentives.
Jones said that if a company seeking state financial support presents a financial plan involving use of EB-5, officials would review it. None has so far, he said. It really isnt a factor that has, if you will, been relevant in any of the investment decisions that weve made, Jones said.
I dont come to the table with a bias against EB-5 or for it, Jones added.
Officials both at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and in the governors office might be disinclined to air public criticisms of EB-5 in light of McAuliffe and the agencys history with the program, said David North, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies.
Jones is in sort of a spot, North said. It would be awkward for him to diss a program that his boss had used in another life.
That applies to Virginia Economic Development Partnership staffers, who may find a neutral stance the only one thats politically tenable, North said.
A cordial tone runs through February 2015 email exchanges between partnership Vice President of Research Robert McClintock and Williams, the immigration lawyer who worked on the GreenTech team that lobbied federal officials over EB-5 processing.
After an apparent meeting between Williams and McClintock, the latter wrote back, I know that Secretary Jones will be most grateful for the guidance that you can impart as we strive to build the New Virginia Economy.
It is my pleasure to assist! I will be in touch again soon, Williams replied.
Jones said he hasnt read the inspector generals report that mentions GreenTech, Williams and influence peddling. He recalled Williams reaching out. Shes one of several EB-5 consultants who have come to him with what he called bullish presentations about the program.
Williams, who continues EB-5 work, described the program as an excellent tool for project development. I have clients everywhere, she said. D.C., Virginia, Philadelphia, New York, California. EB-5, as you know, is very popular.
While some feed EB-5 information to the partnership, others seek guidance on the program.
Tom Rumora, Spotsylvania Countys director of economic development and tourism, said that if he were contacted by a business prospect interested in EB-5 capital, I would call the VEDP office immediately and say, How do you see this working?
He then cited a familiar EB-5 refrain.
It is unusual and it will raise some eyebrows, Rumora said. Just the concept that a foreign investor can be doing this to accelerate their citizenship and that they are not directly involved in the company. They just buy their way into citizenship.
Partnership email traffic about EB-5 also contains a note Rumora sent to Matt McLaren, a manager of international trade at the agency. Rumora had spoken to Michael Sears, an Alexandria-based broker of EB-5 deals. Sears tipped federal authorities to the doomed EB-5 hotel project in Chicago.
Florida attorney David Derrico, who represented some investors in that project, also represented Carolina States Regional Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, when it successfully applied to become an authorized EB-5 broker. Derrico said that application was one of more than 100 hes filed.
Carolina States shares a business address with Development Advisors Inc., the site consultant for Lindenburg Industry, the company behind the failed deal in Appomattox that drew a $1.4 million grant from the Commonwealths Opportunity Fund after the partnership failed to vet the project.
Among other things, an investigation by The Roanoke Times found that partnership officials relied on false information posted on a company website that made it appear that plans to open a catalytic converter plant in Appomattox were an expansion of existing operations in North Carolina. No such operations existed. Virginia has yet to recover its $1.4 million investment from Lindenburg.
Both of Carolina States top representatives, Dandan Liu and Jane Wu, appeared in Appomattox on Nov. 5, 2014, when McAuliffe announced the project. A picture taken at the event shows both women with the governor as part of a group clutching cardboard checks.
Agency officials declined to comment on the photo and said they had no information indicating that the Lindenburg project relied on EB-5 money. Neither Carolina States nor Lindenburg has responded to requests for comment.
According to Gov. Terry McAuliffe, he has one job: Creating new jobs in Virginia.
In addition to announcing on Wednesday Drake Extrusions new $6 million investment in Henry County, which will create 30 new jobs at the facility, McAuliffe also spoke at a business roundtable hosted by Patrick Henry Community College.
At the roundtable, the governor spoke extensively about Virginias strong economy. When he took office two years ago, he said, the state had one of the largest deficits in Virginia history; today, the commonwealth has the largest surplus in its history.
McAuliffe said that hes announced 634 economic development projects since taking office, and that the state has shattered every record in Virginia history on capital investment.
This is all great news, but of course, its not always easy to see these positive trends in Martinsville and Henry County. Northern Virginia continues to flourish thanks to its proximity to the nations capitol, and the coastline is booming thanks to Navy jobs and the deepest deepwater ports on the east coast.
For residents of southside and southwest Virginia, its easy to feel a bit left out from this economic boom excellent announcements like the Drake Extrusion expansion notwithstanding. However, a rising tide lifts all ships, and success in any part of the state bodes well for us all.
And McAuliffe has done something that is a boon for the economy in all parts of the state, southside included or, more accurately, hes refused to do something.
On Wednesday, McAuliffe did not shy away from discussing North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory and House Bill 2, the so-called bathroom bill that blocks cities and local governments from passing antidiscrimination measures that could protect gay and transgender people.
The bill is largely symbolic and all but impossible to actually enforce. It is a solution to a problem that is, at this point, entirely hypothetical.
All that is to say that McCrory did not have a large amount to gain from signing HB2 into law, but he did have a lot to lose, and his loss is the states loss.
Earlier this week, backlash to HB2 inspired PayPal to scuttle plans to open a new global operations center in Charlotte, which would have brought 400 jobs to the city.
North Carolina also has received backlash from dozens of other North Carolina businesses, along with national corporations and organizations such as ESPN, the NBA, the NCAA and Hollywood, to name a few.
Whether someone supports the bill or not, the facts are the facts: HB2 is an unmitigated economic development disaster for our neighbors to the south.
When a similar religious freedom bill was brought before Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal a conservative Republican he vetoed it, saying that I do not think we have to discriminate against anyone to protect the faith-based community in Georgia.
Deal may have reached that decision in part due to corporate pressure Atlanta-based heavyweight Coca-Cola was among the businesses opposed to the bill but from an economic standpoint, it was the right call.
Its also the call McAuliffe has made. He vetoed a similar bill that crossed his desk, and according to him, it was a shame it even made it that far.
No matter how anyone feels about these bills, North Carolina has shown that they are poison for new jobs, and new jobs are what we desperately need.
With a little luck, North Carolinas loss can be our gain. A PayPal global operations center would look pretty good in Henry County.
TODAYS WORD is batten (bat-n). Example: There have always been unscrupulous individuals who batten on the misfortunes of others.
FRIDAYS WORD was ruthless (rooth-liss). It means having or showing no pity or compassion for others. Example: The country was ruled by a ruthless dictator who could inflict punishment at will or any person who defied his orders.
For those interested in railroads, particularly the Fayerdale Railroad, Kenny Kirkman will present a program on the railroad at 10 a.m. Friday, April 15 at the Bassett Historical Center.
Here is some background, provided by Pat Ross at the Bassett Historical Center, that Kirkman will be speaking on.
The Fayerdale Railroad was a 12-mile long standard gauge line that operated from 1906 until the late 1920s from the Village of Philpott, just north of Bassett. The line went up the Smith River then through the area of Goblintown Creek to serve lumber and mining interests for the Virginia Ore and Lumber Company at a town called Fayerdale. The town was located where the beach and swimming areas of Fairy Stone State Park is located today. The program is free and open to the public.
Prom season is upon us and teenagers everywhere are frantically searching for that perfect dress. Meanwhile, parents are also frantically searching for ways to not go bankrupt on said dress! To save money and ensure that no one else will have the same outfit, many shoppers are now shopping online.
All you have to do is turn on your computer and up pops the most beautiful dresses at steal prices. The Better Business Bureau says before you click on what appears to be the most beautiful dress on perfect models, that you check with them first.
The Better Business Bureau has a promposal for those searching for that perfect prom dress: Check it out first.
The Internet can be a wonderful place to shop. Theres an almost limitless amount of designs to choose from and the savvy shopper can sometimes find designer dresses for a fraction of the normal cost. Unfortunately theres always someone trying to ruin the party by spiking the punch.
For every reputable online garment seller, theres a dozen sites selling knock-off, fake, or damaged goods. Theres nothing worse than buying that dream dress, for that dream date, and have it all turn into a nightmare when either the dress doesnt arrive; doesnt fit; or has rips and seams that attach one side to the other, etc.
To be safe follow these BBB tips:
Contact BBB if you feel a websites prices seem too good to be true, or if the site itself seems a bit off. You can search for the companys BBB Rating by going to www.bbb.org and while there check for any prior complaints or government actions.
Know the website. Before ordering a dress, check the URL link to make sure it starts with https:// (the s means it is secure). Also look for a small padlock icon usually located at the corner of the URL bar. These symbols tell shoppers that a website is secure.
Check contact information. Make sure the site has listed a physical location and working phone number.
Always pay with a credit card when shopping online. A purchase with a credit card is protected under the Fair Credit Billing Act. This allows customers to briefly hold payment while a problem is reviewed and resolved. This act also protects customers in the event that credit card information is stolen and used without permission. Make sure to print the receipts and product information of any online purchases to prevent incorrect charges. If a company demands payment by money wire or pre-paid gift cards, run away.
Keep personal information safe. Never email any personal information such as credit card and banking numbers, or social security numbers. Be careful to only give financial information through secure websites. Check the privacy policy to see how the business is using the information they have requested.
If there is a problem with a purchase or business, complaints can be filed with the Better Business Bureau to help resolve the issue. The Federal Trade Commission also handles complaints at www.ftc.gov/complaint along with the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.
To contact BBB serving Western Virginia in Roanoke, go to http://www.bbb.org/western-virginia/news-events/
The Martinsville Police Department would like to warn everyone of a Facebook scam that is using the military to target victims. Here is how it works: Scammers will copy a real military photo and add it to a Facebook page, so that victims will see military personnel in uniform.
Scammers will then pray on a unsuspecting victims good nature by adding a sad story that they are overseas and may need money to help them get home, or that they need money to assist a family member here in the states that is having a medical issue.
Scammers know all the correct words to use to get victims to friend them on Facebook. Once scammers have been friended, they try to gain your trust and then will ask for money for different reasons.
The Martinsville Police Department reminds everyone that if someone contacts you asking for money over the phone, there is a very high likely hood that the caller is attempting to scam you of your money.
This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime event and we could not be more grateful for the opportunity and invitation from Ambassador Baucus and the Asia Pacific Council of American Chambers of Commerce.
One of the most anticipated pieces of this trip, most travelers agree, is our organized trip to the American Embassy in Beijing to visit with former Montana U.S. Senator and now Ambassador to China, Max Baucus.
On April 13 we will lead a group of 95 individuals from the Flathead Valley to visit Ambassador Baucus for a 2-hour session on how the Ambassador manages the complex trade and economic relationship the U.S. has with China and how he works to promote opportunities for business and investment in Montana the United States.
Joe Unterreiner, President/CEO of the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce
Full Story: http://kalispelltravels.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-once-in-lifetime-opportunity.html
The 2015 Montana state legislature passed a law that allows $150 scholarship donations for students attending schools both public and private. The donor is entitled to a matching tax credit against state taxes.
Full Story: http://www.kpax.com/story/31682919/montana-school-tax-credit-debate-continues
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Montana families who sued over scholarship funds brace for possible appeal
A law passed during the 2015 Legislature created a $150 income tax credit for donations that support nonprofit scholarship organizations that help pay for students to attend private schools.
By HOLLY MICHELS [email protected]
Full Story: http://billingsgazette.com/news/government-and-politics/montana-families-who-sued-over-scholarship-funds-brace-for-possible/article_b085362e-1421-582a-a835-849db5073182.html
The days of the American Express Costco credit card are coming to an end.
American Express said last year its exclusive partnership with Costco would end in 2016.
Costco is now partnering with Citigroup, and shoppers can expect to get their new Visa co-branded cards called Costco Anywhere cards in May and early June. The new cards double as membership cards.
June 20 marks the date the warehouse club officially switches over from American Express to the new Visa cards, Citigroup said.
Here are things to know about the upcoming changeover:
By Lauren Zumbach, Chicago Tribune
Full Story: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_29744548/what-costco-shoppers-should-know-before-new-member
Loud music at a concert, nightclub or festival can leave party-goers ears ringing. Now, research published in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery suggests wearing earplugs to events in order to reduce or prevent temporary hearing loss and tinnitus.
Share on Pinterest Events with loud music can expose party-goers to dangerous levels of noise.
Cases of acquired hearing loss are on the rise, with rates among adolescents up by 31% since 1988, according to the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
The trend may be related to exposure to recreational noise through attending concerts, festivals, nightclubs and other music venues.
Loud music at such events can expose individuals to sound pressure levels of 100-110 decibels (dBA) for several hours, a known cause of hearing loss. Hearing loss due to this type of exposure is normally temporary.
Short-term exposure to extremely loud noise, or levels above 140 dBA, can cause acoustic trauma, with direct damage potentially leading to permanent hearing loss.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the maximum safe exposure time for listening to noise at 85 dBA is 8 hours.
For 100 dBA, guidelines recommend a maximum of 15 minutes, and for 106 dBA, just 3.75 minutes. For every 3 dBAs over 85 dBA, exposure time before possible damage can occur is halved.
For comparison, Dangerous Decibels a public health campaign designed to reduce hearing loss puts the sound of a whisper around 20 dBA, busy city traffic at 85 dBA and a rock concert at 115 dBA.
On the margins of the Geneva Conference on Preventing Violent Extremism The Way Forward, Deputy Foreign Minister Ioannis Amanatidis met on 8 April 2016, at the headquarters of the World Council of Churches (WCC), in Geneva, with the General Secretary of the WCC, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit.
Mr. Amanatidis expressed the Greek governments warm thanks for the WCCs cooperation and solidarity with Greece, which it has been focusing on for some time now. He requested continued support for Greeces efforts to face an unprecedented refugee crisis.
Moreover, Mr. Amanatidis thanked the WCC for the initiative of sending an open letter, with the Conference of European Churches and the Churches Commission for Migrants in Europe in cooperation with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) with the basic request for mobilization of forces to assist in the relocation of refugees, in pursuit of substantial support for Greece on the refugee issue, and he underscored that he will convey this important news to the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece.
Finally, he invited Rev. Tveit to visit Greece soon.
Rev. Tveit, having welcomed Mr. Amanatidis, stressed that most of the Churches in Europe are on the front line, trying to raise the awareness among citizens and civil society regarding the migration/refugee crisis, which constitutes a humanitarian crisis.
More specifically, he did not hesitate to describe the imposition of restrictions as a kind of collective punishment, underscoring the need to show charity and compassion to the refugees and calling on Europe to provide greater support for and solidarity with Greece.
Churches worldwide appear very active on the migration/refugee issue, taking on through relevant missions a role that is not just advisory, but also executive/operational, while they are seeking European management of the problem in terms of burden sharing, Rev. Tveit clarified.
Moreover, he characterized the aforementioned open letter as an initiative for mobilizing forces through which Churches around the world are kept abreast of developments, so that they can raise awareness and rally support in the field in question.
Concluding, Rev. Tveit stated that he was impressed by the activation of the Church of Greece, as well as by the Greek peoples generosity towards and compassion for the refugees.
The Head of Greeces Liaison Office in FYROM, Ambassador Theoharis Lalakos, has made two severe demarches since this morning regarding the unacceptable incidents that took place today in Idomeni.
Ambassador Lalakos made it clear in the most categorical manner that the use of violence in no way whatsoever contributes to the resolution of the refugee problem and is in direct conflict with the relevant provisions of international and humanitarian law. Finally, he called on the FYROM authorities to rise to the occasion and exhibit the proper responsibility, self-restraint and seriousness.
N. XYDAKIS: Good afternoon. It is a difficult day; its a Saturday. Thank you for coming on a Saturday, to listen to a few, albeit substantive, words we have to say. Thank you to my colleagues, Ministers of European Affairs and Foreign and European Affairs from six different countries.
This is a different meeting, a different working session of a great value, as will be proven in the future, I believe. Its about cooperation.
As we hoped, this meeting went better than expected. Its about solidarity, with deeds, in practice. We showed what it means to exert policy in the field where things happen, where the problem is, and where and when we are seeking solutions.
The Foreign Minister of the Netherlands and President of the Council of the European Union, Bert Koenders, had announced well, he had said actually that the devil hides in the details, as we all know. Well, they all came here, my colleagues came here, to touch upon the problem, find and deal with the devil in the details. They touched history in the making, as we say.
So this is an informal visit, but it is one of the most substantive ones, on a European level, in the Eastern Mediterranean since the beginning of the outbreak of the refugee crisis. It is a political visit, opening ceremony. We have the political coverage by elected politicians, and at the same time we bring together increased know-how and expertise and a very focused political will.
We keep learning how to work together; we keep learning political lessons, in vivo, not in vitro; its about practice, and not in theory. Think-tanks are good, but here we are talking about practice. People meet other people; they have to ask tough questions, they deliver tough answers sometimes.
So since last night until this very moment this is what we have been doing: tough questions, tough answers, openness, frankness, knowledge, awareness and learning. Will, political will, and learning.
I would attempt to draw two conclusions, two main conclusions, from this short but very important meeting.
First, this is about a very ambitious, radical, difficult plan. Its the Joint Action Plan between the European Union and Turkey. History, necessity and practical needs mean that we all have to take ourselves closer to more political unity, the forms of cooperation and unity that we have kept discussing in Brussels in the various meeting rooms, but are not moving forward.
Now, here, in practice, we have to implement a common asylum policy, in practice, without even having introduced the relevant institutions. So we have started working in practice, in accordance with European values, in accordance with the European acquis, in accordance with international law on refugees.
As I said, its about practice and effectiveness. This is the first lesson we learnt. It was my pleasure to realise that we are on the same page with my colleagues and ministers. We will address the problem together.
The other political lesson we have learnt from this very ambitious project is that once again we are faced with a political problem, a new political problem, and we have to think outside the box in order to find a method of constructive coexistence and partnership among member states in the supranational EU.
And how we will also coexist with civil society, NGOs. And this is another, different challenge posed by history.
We are sensitive to the matter; we are aware, and we are ready to deal with the challenge, to think about it and start providing solutions. Theres not just one single solution. There is no panacea, but we are ready, as I said. We are fully informed. There is no excuse.
And now this brings us to the details and the devil hiding in them. History, as I said, faces us with the problem. We have to find solutions.
At this moment we all realise that in the face of this huge geopolitical destabilization issue in the Eastern Mediterranean the Middle East, we Europeans must stand united together, must think together, must change attitudes together, go beyond the stereotypes and form into something different with more mutual understanding.
I think I talked too long. Let me now give the floor to my colleague, Bert Koenders, who, with Harlem Desir, took the initiative to get together, that we all embraced, of course, and Ms. Margarida Marques, from Portugal, European Affairs Minister of Portugal. Some weeks ago they welcomed us very warmly in Lisbon. Miroslav Lajcak is the Foreign Minister of Slovakia, the forthcoming presidency. He started assuming responsibilities from Bert Koenders. Bert Koenders is the Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, as I said earlier, and the person who took this initiative. I think he has learnt more than we have all learnt. And Harlem Desir he is here for the fifth time. We know each other from the remote past. We are working together another good learner, excellent learner. And Sandro Gozi is someone who has been here several times. He knows Greek affairs very well and is a precious, valuable, steady, solid partner of Greece.
B. KOENDERS: Nikos, I am very glad to be here, and we are actually here with seven ministers of foreign and European affairs, six coming from outside of Greece, one from Greece. But it shows that this is a common challenge that we are faced with, and therefore we are sitting in a working session yesterday and tomorrow to face the common challenges of this migration crisis.
I would like to say first of all that we have been welcomed yesterday very warmly and hospitably by President Pavlopoulos and Prime Minister Tsipras, and I would like to thank specifically Minister Xydakis and the other colleagues we saw this morning for very good, very informative sessions on how we can together support each other in this challenge of migration and asylum.
First of all, Id like to say on behalf of also my colleagues: Greece plays a key role in resolving the migration crisis, given that a substantial proportion of the refugees and economic migrants arrive here first. That is, your geographical location.
With large numbers of people who came ashore day by day and the Greek population, showing great hospitality, is facing a daunting challenge. And Id like to express our great appreciation for not only the Greek authorities but also the Greek people, the Greek Police and asylum organisations.
Fortunately, they are not facing this crisis on their own. The European Union stands ready to lend a hand whenever necessary. This is not a problem that the Greeks should deal with on their own. Its a common European issue. We need not only to show solidarity in words, but also in practice, and that is what we discussed today.
We have to address the issue together. Its not just about the borders of Greece, but also about the borders of Europe as a whole.
This is why the European Union has sprung also into action, to lend assistance in as many locations as possible. As the current holder of the European Union presidency, we are helping to facilitate and encourage these efforts, including deployment issues, ensuring acceptance and implementation of international law and standards, and so on and so forth.
I know that many countries are working with Greece to make this happen. Its a very complex arrangement. From my own country a large border security team has been stationed on Lesbos and Chios to help register and identify refugees. We also contribute to EASO with many experts, and we contribute with humanitarian aid. But it is all of us, all European countries that have to show their solidarity, and we do. And we are looking today and yesterday to the details of this, to make sure that the experts and the supporters, all kind of issues related to humanitarian affairs, are complied with, as we have agreed at a European level, obviously within the context of the national Greek sovereignty.
Greece is in need of many experts, interpreters, legal advisors, I think it is very important for us, having listened and having looked and having visited this afternoon also some of the centers, that we know exactly what is needed and how we can accelerate this. We also need to keep a close eye on developments on the Turkish side. We will visit, at least some of us, also Turkey this afternoon.
I am here with my colleagues in Greece to see for ourselves how the country is doing and how refugees are being accommodated, processed and in some cases returned. We have listened very carefully to the Greek concerns and we are all well aware of the enormous task and challenges the Greek authorities are facing. Over the past two months, we have seen many heartrending images of people in desperate straits; people that have risked their lives to cross the Mediterranean, people being exploited by smugglers in the hope for a better life and people trying to break through fences to reach the European Union. I dont think we ever want to see these kinds of images again. This is not acceptable for any European values or conventions. We want a solution that will ensure that people fleeing war and violence are treated with dignity and respect. And that is the reason behind the agreement between the European Union and Turkey, and I believe we found the right formula to tackle human smuggling, stop people from risking their lives to come to Europe, and create a lawful migration route for the Syrians. I think thats important. Its a combination of these three aspects we together are working in.
This week, several hundred irregular migrants were sent back from Greece to Turkey, and for the first time, Syrians have been transferred to European countries from Turkey. This is a credible start in our view, to implementing this agreement. In my own country we received already 34 Syrian refugees from Turkey this week, mainly families, so did Finland and Germany, and I know also relocation from Greece and resettlement from Turkey both are absolutely crucial elements of this deal. The first days have been behind us. I think that it is a positive development. It was and is a difficult deal. Let us hope this trend continues. We owe it to ourselves to treat refugees and migrants with basic human decency. Thats exactly what we are doing. People who file for asylum in Greece will be assessed individually and carefully and in conformity with international standards.
I would like to raise two specific points that called our attention today. First, the situation of unaccompanied minors among refugees. I think it requires the highest attention of us all and our immediate action. Second, and I think Minister Xydakis was referring that, we also spoke with international organizations and with non-governmental organizations, who shared with us also their findings. And I think it is important that all of us, international organizations, the Greek state and civil society, with support also from the international community, jointly work together to overcome the current challenges.
At the same time, I am aware of the fact that this agreement is not a solution for the broader, global migration problem. A lot of people still have a lot of reasons to migrate to Europe, but this deal is an important and crucial component to start managing this. Therefore, it is crucial that we also eliminate the fundamental causes of migration. We need to take away some of the triggers for displacement. This is why we must commit ourselves as Europeans to resolving the biggest and most pressing conflicts, like those in Mali and Syria, and preventing future conflicts, so that people have better prospects for the future, for themselves and for their families.
Failed states, such as Libya, need our help to get back on their feet, so criminal organizations and human traffickers no longer have free reign. We also need to give people economic prospects and defend their basic rights, so they can make something of their lives.
I would like again to thank you very much on behalf of our delegation. Of course, we are all willing to engage in any questions and answers. Thank you very much.
JOURNALIST: A question to the Dutch Foreign Minister, Mr. Koenders. I would like to ask you, are you satisfied, as the rotating presidency, with the implementation of the relocation project? Because you mentioned also resettlement from Turkey to the Netherlands directly, but what about resettlement from Turkey to other European countries? And what is the message that you are going to send to Turkey during your visit to Turkey, starting later today? And one last question concerning the referendum in your country. Do you believe that maybe there are repercussions, I mean in the Netherlands, concerning the future of the European Union at this critical junction, especially in view of the refugee and migrant crisis? Thank you.
B. KOENDERS: Thank you very much. First of all, I would like to say that on the issue of relocation and resettlement, I think some of my colleagues want to also take the floor, because I know that many countries are engaged now in the programs of European solidarity and ensuring that this system is going to work. I see it as the role of this delegation as a whole, including the presidency when we go back, to ensure that there are sufficient commitments from all countries to make resettlement and relocation work. The only way we can kill the business model of the smugglers is to create the legal route, as agreed upon by the European leaders, as to a one-to-one replacement figure, but it means solidarity in many other areas as well.
The second question related to whether we are satisfied with these aspects, I would say yes. The beginning is excellent, in the sense that immediately, as the movement between Greece and Turkey started, there have been flights organized to different countries, including also others like Germany and Finland, to resettle the asylum seekers that were in Turkey on the basis of the one-to-one formula.
As to the referendum in my own country, we are going to assess from our side, as the Dutch government, the outcome of this. This is a new democratic instrument we have in the Netherlands, more than the 30% required in the Dutch electorate voted, also many people who didnt vote, it was a threshold of around 30% to 32% of the people voted. They voted in majority against the association agreement with Ukraine. We have certain concerns, which we are identifying at the moment and we will discuss with our European colleagues obviously and with Ukraine, how we can take the next steps in this. I just want to ensure also from my side that this is in no way a lack of appreciation of solidarity with the Ukrainian people, but we will have to reflect with our European colleagues on how we can come to a sensible solution to this. Thank you.
JOURNALIST: Sir, there was an article last week on the CNN network, because you talked about Libya, that there are thousands of jihadists in the Middle East and North Africa, waiting to pass to Europe, and that already 400 of them have passed through some networks.
Do you think that Europe is doing enough for European security? Everybody agrees that we need to treat refugees with a humanist policy, but is there also a security aspect of this policy, so that we protect Europe, especially after the terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris?
B. KOENDERS: Let me first of all say that I do not want to dominate this press conference and I am sure my colleagues would like to say something about it as well. But let me just say from my side yes, but I mean I know that we are all ministers and we all have the right to speak. And hes the next president, so hes
Let me just say very quickly on this: First of all, I think its very important to underline that not only for the Dutch presidency but I think for all ministers, if they are for the interior, for European affairs, or for foreign affairs, having this issue as a priority in all our dealings in Europe. And we have prioritized this also, as a European presidency.
You are completely correct in saying lets not confuse the refugee issue with the terrorism issue. These people are, in large majorities, overwhelming majorities, fleeing exactly the terror we are talking about.
Secondly, it is important to note that and I think therefore this agreement that we have at the moment between the European Union and Turkey but more generally to ensure that screening taking place at the external borders of Europe is an absolute priority. In that sense, its also part of this discussion, the support to Greece but also to other countries. The new proposals as a new migration policy in Europe all reflect the need to have free internal borders but combined with external screening of people.
Secondly, I would like to mention that the ministers of the interior and justice prioritise the need for very, very concrete cooperation within Europe of the intelligence services, law enforcement services, and border controls.
Thirdly, most of the countries are also involved in cooperation with third countries, in two elements, as to limiting this issue:
First is on the repressive side. That means sharing of intelligence to ensure that we know who is who. And I am sure my colleagues from France and other countries are very much involved in this and they can speak much better about it. But this is a priority.
And second, also to work on the prevention side. As Foreign Minister, I say that our priority is definitely now, with the Italians and with others, on the situation in Libya, beginning positive signs as to a new government of national unity. But its the very, very beginning, and we have to reinforce that, assist the reinforcement of that. We have to be proactive, as Europeans, to make sure that if a new flow would arise from that area we are not only in the reactive mode, but in terms of the mandates that we are discussing and on possible support for a new Libyan administration that we are on the ball, so to speak.
So I think you are quite correctly pointing out the issue of security is key. The first role of any government national but also at the European level is to protect the states, the citizens against terrorist attacks.
D. MANOLIS (Athens News Agency): A question to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Slovakia. This is your second visit here in three days. What does it mean, concerning the level of relations between the two countries? Is there an improvement of bilateral relations? And also in view of your forthcoming presidency, during the second semester of 2016, the migration and refugee issues are on the top of your agenda? Thank you.
MR. M. LAJCAK: Yes, indeed. This is my second visit to Greece in the course of this week. I was here earlier to pay a bilateral visit. This was my very first visit after the appointment of the new government, and after my reappointment as the Foreign Minister of Slovakia, and I wanted to come to Greece for particular symbolic and practical reasons, to stress the importance of our bilateral relations, to assure my Greek partners about the friendship and about the fact that Slovakia cares a lot about the good cooperation that we traditionally have had. And I was very pleased with the reception and with the reaction of my Greek counterparts to this visit.
Now I am here as a part of this important group. This is a visit of solidarity, and at the same time it is a fact-finding mission focusing on the issue of migration. Its particularly important for me representing the future presidency of the European Union. Yes, I can assure you that the migration issue will be at the top of our agenda, at the top of our attention, and we will do our utmost to continue the effort of the European Union to address the migration crisis.
Your country is the most heavily affected by the migration crisis, which does not mean that its your countrys problem. Its our common European problem that can be solved only through a common European effort, and we will spare no time, no energy, to succeed in this effort. And from this perspective, I really found our visit and the meeting we have had up until now extremely useful. We have learned a lot, and it helped us to understand where we stand exactly, as of today, in implementing the deal between the European Union and Turkey.
And its been also very important for me, because it will help us to fine-tune the preparations for our presidency and addressing this particular issue.
M. KOURBELA: First of all, let me stress that this is the first time such solidarity is expressed in practice, in such a great team. Congratulations. I hope this continues.
A question for Mr. Desir. Are you optimistic that France will participate in the resettlement project? It is European Union law, but I see many countries hesitating, being very reluctant to implement resettlement.
H. DESIR: Thank you. First, I am very happy to be here with my colleagues, and I want to underline the fact that its an exceptional initiative, because we are facing an exceptional crisis, which requires an exception mobilization of European Union member states.
This is not just a Greek crisis. Greece is facing an international situation which is linked with the war in Syria and to instability and poverty in other places of the world. And the people who came to Greece came here because they want to go to Europe.
Now we have established an agreement with Turkey. We have established also an agreement on solidarity among member states, to support Greece, to help to face the humanitarian situation, to open a legal way of welcoming refugees, instead of human trafficking, to stop the deaths of people in the sea because of the abuse of human smugglers. And we have to implement this plan.
So what was very clear from the meetings we had with our colleagues, with the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, Mr. Tsipras, but also with Mr. Yannis Mouzalas and the European agencies, the UNHCR, the NGO that we met also this morning, is that we have to increase and to speed up the implementation of this plan from the side of the European member states.
There have also been commitments which have been made to support implementation, and now every EU member state and we will report to our colleagues when back to Brussels and to our capital as to fulfil its commitment. It is very clear for the personnel which have to be sent from the European agency FRONTEX to EASO for the asylum seekers. It is clear also that we have to ensure that all the means will be provided to NGOs and to the Greek authorities for the humanitarian part of the plan, for the people who are in need here, and also that we have to fulfill our commitments regarding relocation; because you are right to say that this is an important part of what we have decided.
The people who arrived in Greece before the time of the implementation of the plan with Turkey, before the 20th of March, who are blocked now in the country, those who can apply for asylum right, who are in need of international protection, we have decided that they will be welcome in all EU member states. So we ask and we demand all EU member states to be prepared to welcome those people, we have begun to do it, we have shown that it is possible to do it with the needed security scrutiny. Of course, there is a need to be sure that no criminals, no terrorists will use this welcome program of refugees, but we have put in place the mechanism to ensure that, and now we ask all the member states to welcome the refugees.
On the other side, we have also decided that people in Turkey in cooperation with the UN who are refugees can come to Europe through a resettlement program, and France will take its part to this resettlement program. In the coming days and weeks, you will see that 200 people will be welcomed from Turkey directly. This is very important. Some people have already been welcomed to Germany, because we want to put in place a mechanism where if you want to go to Europe, you have to apply through a legal mechanism and not to try to go at the risk of your life, by going in a boat, which has been put in the sea by the smugglers, who are criminals.
So, in the relocation system I think that France now is one of the leading countries for welcoming people from Greece and from Italy too. In the resettlement mechanism from Turkey we will also fulfill our commitment and we think that this is very important to show that Europe, at the same time that it controls its borders, respects its values, respects the asylum rights and the Geneva Convention and organizes itself to do it in such conditions that the smuggling will stop and that the people will come to Europe in safe conditions. Thank you.
G. ALEXAKIS(reporter.gr): From reporter.gr. A question to the Portuguese Minister. What is the contribution of your country to the resettlement program and to what extent do you work with the Greek government in the context of the relocation program? And one question to the Italian Minister. What is the plan of Italy to handle, to address migrant flows in case there is a problem in Libya? And what about the deployment of security forces in Albania? Was that the result of cooperation with the Greek government or not? And does this tally with the good climate we need in Europe for the purpose of managing the problem?
M. MARQUES: Thank you very much for your question. First of all, I would like to underline that concerning when the questions about my colleague who was here before yesterday and he is now today with us, my Prime Minister will arrive tomorrow in Greece for a bilateral meeting. Dont jump to conclusions as to why Portugal is here again. We are here because we think this is a European mission and because it is a European problem, and we need to have a European answer.
That is why we are here. The presidency deemed that it was important to be together discussing and having the opportunity to see on the ground what is happening and discussing and listening to all organizations, NGOs, who are together with our program. So this is a very important issue and we decided to do both; come to Greece and come to Turkey. And afterwards we will discuss, we will do the assessment of our conclusions to discuss how to go on with this mission.
To answer directly to your question, Portugal is very engaged in this issue and at the beginning of February, the Portuguese Prime Minister sent a letter to Greece, Italy, Austria, Sweden and Germany, to offer, to make an offer to receive more refugees. And our proposal is to receive 5,000 more than the quota in the beginning. So we can receive 10,000 refugees in our country in the relocation programme. So this is our offer and my country is very open to receiving refugees, because of solidarity, but also we have extensive experience with refugees in the 70s or the 80s. We know that the situation is different, but we have this experience and at the end of the day we think that it is a European issue and we need to have a European answer. And also, it is a very important challenge for Europe nowadays.
S. GOZI: Thank you. First of all, let me say that I am very satisfied with and grateful for this initiative that the Dutch Presidency and the Greek government took, because we know the feeling, in Italy. We know the feeling when you are a common border, you are a European border, a maritime border; it is clear that either you go ahead with a strong European action and with a concrete sense of European solidarity, or you cannot manage the issue. So it is very important, I do believe, that we are here, that we met with your government, that we met with the NGOs, that we met with international and European organizations, because this is teamwork for a package deal, which encompasses several aspects, and they must all work. Identification, reception, relocation, resettlement, return; they must all work.
From the Italian perspective we were very clear in the last Summit and in the conclusions we find satisfactory wordings. What we are doing today with Greece. And I should say, what we are doing today with the European Union, in this part of Europe. We are supposed a committee to do for the European Union in another part of Europe, i.e., in the Mediterranean. So we expect the same kind of solidarity and the same kind of commitment from the European Union partners and countries in the Mediterranean, in case there was another apex of the crisis, of a very, very huge increase of flows. We do not have any specific elements of alarm at the moment, for the time being, but this is how we prepare ourselves. We have settled in Greece the reception capacity in Italy, we have sped up the asylum procedure, we have sped up also the implementation of the hotspots, so we are doing our part and we do believe that this is the best way.
We are working on the prevention side also with our Albanian friends. We havent seen any specific increase of the flows through Albania, but we do believe that it is very important to strengthen our cooperation between the Italian government and the Albanian government. We have already provided resources for monitoring the borders to our Albanian partners and we are working very closely. Myself, I went to Tirana a few weeks ago. The two ministers, Albanian and Italian, are closely cooperating, not to find ourselves once again taken by surprise, when we know that there is the possibility of new flows and we are ready to work a lot on the prevention side.
Italy is also sending 20 asylum experts who are about to start to work here in Greece, exactly to strengthen the capacity in the asylum process, because it is clear that the numbers are huge for one singe country, so one of the most important things that we provide is experts, and there are 20 experts of Italy who are starting and Italy has already been present in the sea, on the border between the EU and Turkey. We have, with one helicopter and two vessels, rescued the lives of 1,354 people, and we have rescued 64 naval, if you want to say both, units, and certainly we are ready to do our part for the full implementation of this agreement.
JOURNALIST: I have two questions. One for all the ministers and one to Minister Xydakis.
How do you explain a certain delay of the European officers to come to Greece to help for the treatment of the asylum demands? And to Mr. Xydakis, if we have any new numbers of these arrivals. And the second question, when you think is the next dispatch of migrants to Turkey. Thank you.
N. XYDAKIS: The delay of sending officers, yes, of officials, yes, indeed there is one, but it doesnt change our plans. It was expected, because we were overambitious I think. This is a giant operation, with little or no preparation. We all knew that some delays would be incurred for the purpose of the operation. This operation is still in the making of course and it has no precedent. Well, we have started receiving officials and other staff to the Greek authorities. FRONTEX more or less has what it needs. The European asylum support office has been calling for more participants and I think we have a good, steady flow. The pressure will be felt mainly by EASO in the next few weeks, but of course the Greek government and the other governments will also help.
Now, concerning inflows to Greece, I think the flow has decreased. We are talking about the low hundreds, it is still a three-digit number, but in the range of 100 or 200 persons. You know, this is manageable. The need in terms of identification and accommodation just on the islands after the 20th of March and the needs to deal with asylum seekers. This is exactly what will be the issue in the next weeks. There may be delays there, but we will soon be on top of the problem. All these delays were to be expected, as I said. It is a transition, you know. You understand, the Greek authorities, the European apparatus must adapt to a totally new situation, in order for everyone to be in a position to manage this situation. I believe in two or three weeks, the landscape will be better, much better.
Dont forget, I said earlier, this is a new, ambitious operation without precedent. We are still on a learning curve, no one has done it before. We are testing our intellectual forces and our political will.
Concluding the previous discussions and this Press Conference, let me say that we are still reacting to a historical reality, we are still learning and from a purely political point of view, I would say, that in recent months we have been hearing about skepticism, Euro-skepticism, about the extreme right, the far right, etc., about extremism, but now we are sending quite an opposite message. These are the forces bringing us together, bringing us closer. This is the progressive Europe of more cohesion. These are the forces of the center, the center-left, those who defend the principles of the French Revolution; those who defend the core of European values. So what brings us together is this humanitarian nucleus of values.
As I said before, we are learning from history, from a historical reality that is happening now. Without any obsessions deriving from the historical past. So in a nutshell, if you will, this is an informal appearance of the coalition of the willing. This is what you have been seeing here today. Thank you. Thank you very much for your presence here.
City Corporation Counsel Melvin Hollowell says in a press release that officials are "confident that the city's medical marijuana regulations are lawful, fair and reasonable."
Hollowell says the city will continue to enforce compliance with the new laws which require store operators to get a business license designed for medical marijuana stores. They also prohibit shops from operating within 1,000 feet of places including churches, schools and parks, though stores can apply for a variance.
The Detroit News reports that the lawsuit was filed last week by dispensaries which said the city turned down their applications. The shops are in areas considered to be drug-free zones.
Customers at the store in Butte called police to report a sleeping man behind the wheel of the running car around 2:30 a.m., Butte-Silver Bow County Undersheriff George Skuletich said. The officer who responded woke the man up, identified him as Robert O'Neill and noticed odd behavior.
"He was confused. His actions were consistent with somebody who might be under the influence of something," Skuletich said.
O'Neill denied drinking, gave different stories about where he had been and at one point told the officers he had taken prescription medication to help him sleep, Skuletich said.
O'Neill failed a field sobriety test and would not perform others. The officers brought him to jail, where he refused a test to determine his blood alcohol level. At that point, he was charged with driving under the influence, which is a misdemeanor, Skuletich said.
Jail records show O'Neill was released at 4:26 a.m. after posting a $685 bond. It is his first arrest.
O'Neill denied that he was intoxicated and thanked police for their professionalism and courtesy.
"The facts are that I took a prescribed sleep aid to help with long-standing severe insomnia," he said in a statement released Friday through a public relations firm. "While the timing was bad and I highly regret this decision, I am innocent of the charge and have entered a plea of not guilty.
"I am confident I will soon be cleared of this matter," he said.
O'Neill began publicly discussing his role in the 2011 bin Laden raid two years ago. He told The Associated Press in a 2014 interview that the American public had a right to know more details about the killing of the al-Qaida leader.
Pentagon officials previously said it is not clear whose shots killed bin Laden.
O'Neill has made numerous speeches across the country since 2014.
O'Neill, who joined the Navy in 1995, participated in the 2009 rescue of the captain of a merchant ship taken hostage by Somali pirates, a mission that was the subject of the Tom Hanks movie "Captain Phillips."
He also helped rescue the survivor of a four-man team attacked in 2005 while tracking a Taliban leader in Afghanistan, which was featured in the 2013 film "Lone Survivor."
Alex Perez appeared in a Berrien County court Friday and was sent to jail on a $5 million bond. An attorney will be assigned.
Perez is charged with murder in the deaths of 27-year-old Renee Mitchell and her father, 67-year-old John Mitchell, in Coloma in January. Police caught him and his two young daughters in Georgetown, Colorado, on Jan. 15.
Police believe the 24-year-old Perez was returning home to Los Angeles at the time.
At the courthouse Friday, Perez' sister, Laura, says there are "two sides to the story." She says his family supports him.
Just a fraction of schools and day care centers nationwide are required to check for lead because most receive their water from municipal systems that test at other locations. State and federal lawmakers have called for wider testing.
Among schools and day care centers operating their own water systems, Environmental Protection Agency data analyzed by The Associated Press showed that 278 violated federal lead levels at some point during the past three years. Roughly a third of those had lead levels that were at least double the federal limit.
In almost all cases, the problems can be traced to aging buildings with lead pipes, older drinking fountains and water fixtures that have parts made with lead.
Riverside Elementary in the northern Wisconsin town of Ringle has lead pipes buried in its concrete foundation that used to leach into the tap water before a filtration system was installed. Replacing the pipes, which were installed when the school was built in the 1970s, is not an option.
"For the cost of that, you might as well build a new school," said Jack Stoskopf, an assistant superintendent.
Instead, he said, school officials decided to rip out the drinking fountains more than a decade ago and buy bottled water for students, costing about $1,000 a month.
Buying bottled water for drinking has been the routine at Ava Head Start in West Plains, Missouri, even before lead levels spiked after the preschool moved into a new building in 2010.
But it was not until February, after another round of high test results, that state regulators told the preschool to use bottled water for cooking and cleaning the toothbrushes for the 59 children, ages 3 and 4.
"The cost is not an option," said Sandra Porter, Ava's cook and water operator. "We're just doing what we have to."
Schools required to conduct lead testing represent only about 1 of every 10 schools in the country. Those receiving their water from city-owned systems an estimated 90,000, according to the EPA are not required by the federal government to do so.
In recent weeks, state lawmakers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania have proposed legislation that would require testing in all schools. Some members of Congress have called for more money and expanded lead sampling.
In March, some samples from the school district in Newark, New Jersey, came back with high amounts of lead. The district shut off sinks and fountains in 30 buildings and offered to test as many as 17,000 children for lead.
The inconsistent testing leaves most schoolchildren in buildings that are unchecked and vulnerable because lead particles can build up in plumbing when water goes unused for long periods.
"In schools, that means almost every weekend," said Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards, who helped expose the lead problem in Flint's water.
His colleague, Yanna Lambrinidou, also notes that under EPA guidelines, schools and day care centers can report that an entire building is safe even if an individual drinking fountain is above the threshold.
Last year alone, lead levels exceeded the EPA limit of 15 parts per billion at 64 schools or day care centers that are required to test because they have their own water systems.
While no state is immune to the problem, half the high lead readings since the beginning of 2013 were in states along the East Coast. School buildings there are older and more likely to have lead plumbing. Pennsylvania, Maine and New Jersey topped the list.
Nationwide, the average age of school buildings dates to the early 1970s. It was not until 1986 that lead pipes were banned, and it was not until 2014 that brass fixtures were ordered to be virtually lead-free.
School leaders in Idaho Falls, Idaho, decided in February to remove two drinking fountains within a week of finding out about a recent high sample and another one from three years ago that the state failed to notify them about.
Idaho's Department of Environmental Quality acknowledged it should have followed up with more testing three years ago.
Still, regulators told school officials this year they could keep the two drinking fountains if they just flushed the water each day, said John Pymm, safety director with the Bonneville Joint School District in Idaho Falls.
"It made the most sense to get them out of service and make folks feel at ease," he said.
Tyler Baum, whose three daughters attend the elementary school, said he was not too concerned because the school acted quickly on its own.
"It certainly made me more aware of the water," he said. "We just assume we'll have clean drinking water."
The judge, David Goldman, repeatedly said many rules are "overly broad," including restrictions on posting online opinions about the workplace. He also said employees should be told they have the right to join a union. Some rules were upheld.
Quicken says it will appeal Goldman's decision to the National Labor Relations Board. In a statement, Quicken said Friday that the ruling sets a "dangerous precedent" and "exceeds the boundaries of rationality."
The complaint was filed by Hugh MacEachern. He claims he was fired by Quicken in retaliation for exploring whether to start a union.
Morro Bay Fire Chief Steve Knuckles said that 27-year-old Michael Banks was arrested on suspicion of possessing methamphetamine.
Knuckles said Banks climbed to the top of the cliff early Thursday to propose. Banks got stuck on the way down. No one has spoken to the girlfriend. Knuckles said Friday that he didn't know if the proposal was real only that Banks told "several people" during the rescue that he had asked for her hand in marriage. Police were not immediately available for comment.
Banks "took a different trail down, much steeper" and became stranded, said Capt. Todd Gailey. "He couldn't go any direction, on a sheer ledge, with his feet dangling 80 feet off the ground."
Rescuers called in a helicopter, and a crew member descended by cable to hoist Banks from the narrow ledge.
Banks was calm for most of the ordeal, but "a little unnerved" at that part, Gailey said. He was not hurt.
About 4 p.m. Thursday Banks was arrested when witnesses reported he was acting erratically.
Morro Rock is a 600-foot landmark just offshore from the community of Morro Bay. Climbing is banned, but some go anyway, and there have been several fatal falls over the years. Banks will be charged for the chopper ride.
Banks said nothing during the rescue about any second thoughts on his choice of setting for the proposal, Gailey said.
However, the fire captain said others should consider a place "where you're not in danger of falling off a cliff."
Banks has been booked into jail and isn't available for comment.
Cairo (AFP) - Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Saudi King Salman agreed to set up a $16-billion investment fund Saturday and settled a long-standing maritime dispute as the monarch continued his rare visit to the country.
A day after Salman announced a plan to build a bridge over the Red Sea to Egypt, the heads of state met at the historic Abdeen Palace in Cairo to oversee the inking of a string of agreements Egypt hopes will help boost its battered economy.
In one of the most high-profile announcements, Cairo said it had agreed to demarcate its maritime borders with Saudi Arabia, officially placing two islands in the Straits of Tiran in Saudi territory.
The 80-year-old Saudi monarch's visit to Egypt has been seen as a clear show of support for Sisi, the former military chief who toppled his Islamist predecessor Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
Since touching down on Thursday, Salman and his delegation have announced a slew of investments in Egypt.
A live Egyptian state television broadcast on Saturday showed an official announcing the latest agreements, signed by a representative of each country.
The two nations agreed "to set up a Saudi-Egyptian investment fund with a capital of 60 billion Saudi riyals ($16 billion)," the announcer said, giving no further details.
More than a dozen other accords, including a memorandum of understanding to set up an industrial zone in Egypt, were also announced.
Saudi Arabia has been a key backer of Sisi since the overthrow of Morsi, whose Muslim Brotherhood movement was viewed by Riyadh with suspicion.
It has since pumped billions of dollars in aid and investment into Egypt.
Egyptian officials and media have heaped accolades on Salman, with state television welcoming him to what it called his "second country" -- a country Riyadh views as a cornerstone in its ambitions to be a regional leader against Iran.
- Maritime borders -
But the agreement announced by the cabinet on Saturday to settle the dispute over the islands of Tiran and Sanafir provoked an immediate backlash in Egypt, where thousands tweeted a hashtag accusing Sisi of selling the islands.
Tiran had historically been a Saudi island 'leased' to Egypt in 1950.
Earlier on Saturday, Salman paid a visit to the prestigious Al-Azhar mosque.
He is due to address parliament on Sunday and receive an honorary doctorate from Cairo University on Monday.
An Egyptian government official had said the deals agreed with Saudi Arabia, excluding the investment fund, would amount to $1.7 billion.
On Friday, both leaders lavished praise on each other's countries and their relationship.
"This visit comes as a confirmation of the pledges of brotherhood and solidarity before the two brotherly countries," Sisi said in a televised speech.
The visit follows months of reports in Saudi and Egyptian newspapers of strained ties over Cairo's unwillingness to participate fully in Saudi-led military operations against Iran-backed Shiite rebels in Yemen.
Egypt had announced it would back Saudi Arabia with ground troops if needed, but appears to have balked at the prospect of becoming mired in the conflict.
Sisi's close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who militarily backs Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad against Saudi-supported rebels, has reportedly also caused friction with Riyadh.
However, Saudi Arabia has played a key role in propping up Egypt's economy, whose vital tourism industry has been devastated by years of political turmoil and jihadist attacks.
For Saudi Arabia, which is in competition with regional rival Iran, keeping Egypt under its aegis is crucial.
Moroni (Comoros) (AFP) - Voters were heading to the polls in the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Comoros on Sunday in a likely face-off between the current vice president and a former coup leader who ruled the country for seven years.
The second round of the presidential election comes after Vice President Mohamed Ali Soilihi -- known as Mamadou -- won the first round in February with 17.88 percent of the vote.
The two other contenders are governor of Grande Comore island Mouigni Baraka, who garnered 15.62 percent in the first round, and 1999 coup leader Colonel Azali Assoumani, who took 15.10 percent.
Voting kicked off under calm conditions just after 7:00 am (0400 GMT), with people lining up at poll stations under the eye of a discrete police presence.
Assoumani is seen as Mamadou's main rival after receiving the endorsement from the opposition Juwa party, which has no candidate in the second round.
The Juwa party split over the endorsement, and 15 high-ranking party officials resigned to rally behind Mamadou, who is viewed as the establishment choice.
Assoumani first came to power in 1999 after ousting acting president Tadjidine Ben Said Massounde in a coup.
He then won the presidential election three years later, stepping down when his term ended in 2006.
If the election goes smoothly, results are expected within three days in the race to succeed outgoing President Ikililou Dhoinine.
- Dire poverty -
A Constitutional Court ruling in March upheld the first-round results after 19 of the 25 candidates alleged fraud.
Campaigning for the second round was marked by personal attacks and allegations of corruption, with barbs traded particularly between Mamadou and Assoumani.
The first round took place only on Grand Comore island, in accordance with electoral rules that ensure the president is chosen on a rotating basis from the three main islands.
Comoros' system was established in 2001 after more than 20 coups or attempted coups, four of which were successful, in the years following independence from France in 1975.
The three islands of Anjouan, Grand Comore and Moheli that make up the Comoros have a total population of just under 800,000 people, nearly all of whom are Sunni Muslims.
Dhoinine's completion of his five-year term in the impoverished archipelago has been seen as a sign of growing stability in the Comoros in recent years.
Though the islands, situated between Madagascar and Mozambique, suffer dire poverty, they export some vanilla, cloves and ylang-ylang perfume essence.
Comoros is the world's top producer of ylang-ylang, which is extracted from a flower -- a commodity that makes up one-tenth of the archipelago's total export revenues.
The oil is a key ingredient in Chanel N5 and is also used in many other perfumes.
The Editor in Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper has taken Ghana's surviving ex-presidents down memory lane over what has been a never ending controversy over the construction of the Keta Sea Defence wall.
Malik Kweku Baako Jnr says ex-president John Rawlings swindled Ghanaians into thinking his government was going to construct the wall but rather presided over an era of embezzlement of the monies accrued for the construction of the wall.
He also faulted ex-president John Kufuor for a lapse in memory of the year in which the actual embezzlement had occurred.
He made the comments on Joy FM's newsfile programe while contributing to the ongoing controversy and political contest of achievement in the Volta Region- a contest between the governing NDC and the opposition NPP.
President John Mahama triggered the controversy with his claim that the New Patriotic Party did nothing for the people of the Volta Region in its eight year tenure.
That claim did not sit well with Ex-President John Kufuor who hit back in equal measure accusing the sitting president of dishonesty.
Mr Kufuor in chronicling the many achievement of the NPP mentioned the Keta Sea Defence project which he said was successfully completed under his tenure in 2004.
The project was to save the people of Keta from the sea erosion they were suffering at the time but Mr Kufour said a $92 million exim bank loan contracted by the Rawlings regime for the execution of the project was squandered.
He said when the NPP took over government in 2001, it had to start from the scratch and build the defence wall for the people of Keta.
He therefore found it rather disheartening that several years later, president Mahama will say that the NPP did not execute any project in the Volta Region.
But critics have lunged at Mr Kufuor for suggesting that the monies for the project were misappropriated.
Speaking on the matter, Saturday, Malik Kweku Baako Jnr said ex-President John Kufuor was right in suggesting that funds for the project were embezzled but said he got it wrong in respect of the year of the embezzlement and the actual loan facility that was embezzled.
Kufuor's Amnesia
Kweku Baako explained that the $92 million Exim Bank loan procured in 1999 was not embezzled but a previous facility secured for the project was embezzled with impunity.
According to him, in 1996 the vision to construct a sea defence wall for Keta began with some funds allocated for it. However those funds were not used for the purpose for which they were secured.
Quoting a report of a committee set up to investigate the circumstances under which the funds were embezzled, Malik Baako said the contractors had been overpaid $3.9 million.
"The guys chopped the money left right and centre," he said, adding, the minister at the time told Parliament that government had retrieved an amount of $1.5 million and was going to collect the remaining $2 billion in due course.
Rawlings' propaganda
According to Malik Kweku Baako who is one of the fiercest critics of the ex-president, Mr. Rawlings deliberately sat in the bulldozer in 1996 with a promise to execute the sea defence wall.
At best, he said the bulldozer spectacle was only for propaganda value because two years after that charade nothing had been done on the project site.
The New Crusading Guide Editor also quoted the 18th May 1998 Joy FM report which suggested that nothing had been done on the project site two years after Rawlings went to cut sod.
He said the project manager of the Great Lakes Company, the company contracted to execute portions of the project admitted that his company put something on the site to create the impression that the sea defence wall was being constructed..
It was after all these that Exim Bank loan was procured for the project in 2000 but the Rawlings led NDC lost power in the 2000 elections with Mr Kufuor taking over the reins of power.
Kweku Baako said the NPP completed a chunk of the project but was quick to add the Keta sea defence was a comprehensive project, which covered more than the Rawlings and Kufuor administrations.
Environment Science and Technology Minister Mahama Ayariga who was also on the show defended the president's decision to criticize the NPP for doing very little in the Volta Region.
He said the president only responded to queries from the NPP, that his presidency had turned a blind eye to the needs of the people in the region, despite their massive support for the party.
Health professionals from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and the University of Development Studies (UDS) have performed free corrective surgery for a hermaphrodite in the Upper West Region.
The 16-year-old was quizzed about his preferred sex, to which he agreed to remain a man.
Prior to the surgery he had a protruding stomach and highly inflamed breasts.
It took the medical team some three hours to complete the reconstructive surgery.
Urologist and Senior lecturer at the KNUST Medical School, Dr Kwaku Addai Arhin who led the team said it was good to wait for patients to make a decision about their preferred choice of sex before the surgery was conducted.
One other major case which was attended to was that of a middle aged woman who had a leakage in her intestines.
A Senior Lecturer at the KNUST, Dr Joseph Yorke, who also led a team to perform the reconstruction on the leakage said: "she is carrying a baby so if we lose her we are losing two people and we dont want that.
The initiative is part of a medical outreach programme organised by the health professionals from both universities.
Some 379 people also benefited from various treatments free of charge by the 37 doctors.
They spent five days working in five district hospitals in the region.
The programme formed part of the KNUST Medical School's 40-year anniversary.
The patients were grateful to the team for coming to the region as it would have cost them about a2,000 to travel to Kumasi for the surgery.
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10.04.2016 LISTEN
Your Excellency John Agyekum Kuffour,
I trust you doing well.
This is my second public statement about you.The first was when I co-authored a press stemtement and signed (as the Media & Communication Director for 350Ghana-Reducing Our Carbon) to congratulate you on the occasion of your appointment as a Climate Change Ambassador.Thanks to your Secretary Mr. Frank Agyekum, for the warm reception when I visited your office to officially deliver the statement.
Your Excellency, this time around it's about politics.I marveled to wake up to a very distasteful and wild publication in which you were purported to have lambasted the NDC government for showcasing what you termed "kids movie " as development projects.
Apparently, the NDC for sometime now had decided to treat some of your utterances with kid gloves and rather focus on Nana Akufo-Addo since he's the candidate your party has featured for the 2016 elections despite his rapid dwindling popularity and consistent failure to secure the mandate of the good people of Ghana.
Unlike your party (which is currently in disarray), the NDC party is a very formidable and strategic party and I'm in no doubt whatever, that you would receive a response at the most appropriate time.But, as a #Footsoldier, permit me to remind you of some of your records which accounted for your Party's poor showing in both the 2008 and 2012 general elections.
Your Excellency, do you recall how you #failed miserably to deliver on your promise of linking Ghana to her neighbouring countries via #rail network system? You had a special Minister in charge of the Rail sector but ended up #collapsing the sector in toto.
You disappointed the people of Cape Coast and Kumasi after your failure to deliver on your promise of constructing an ultra-modern market to their respective cities. Under #JM administration, work on these markets are progressing as scheduled and are nearing completion without any hindrance whatsoever.
Sir,you'll forever be remembered as the president who supervised the collapse of the #GhanaAirways, #STC and in fact, your own initiative, the #PSI.
Remember how your level of mismanagement compelled you to sell #GT to #Vodafone and used the proceeds to pay salaries.Your own parliamentarians had to be #bribed to see the deal through.
Oh yes,your government created a very conducive environment for businesses to thrive including #drugtrafficking business to the extent that a sitting MP was encouraged to indulge in such a disgusting venture.We even earned for ourselves #Cocaincoast by dint of your terrible leadership .Another criminal #MP from your party lied his way to the august house of Parliament without denouncing his British Citizenship.Your own party chair accused you of setting up 'The Center for Kickback Collection' (a Looting Think Tank) at the seat of government. Years after leaving government, your name continue to make waves and occupy top position in all manner of suspicious deals.The latest in the series is the Panama Paper expose and for your information, Ghanaians are keenly waiting to see how these undercover deals unfold.Such was the state of affairs during your reign yet Ghana didn't collapse.#Greed and nothing but greed, was the order of the day under your government.
You'll go down in history as the president who spearheaded the unprecedented state of insecurity in the Dagbon community.The conflict in Bawku was at its escalating hight when you left power and has to take the NDC government to restore calm and security.Be grateful to God that Adam Mahama and the Asawase NPP sympathizer (May their Souls rest in peace) cold-blooded killings didn't occur during your tenure of office.
Your Excellency, I was therefore not in the least surprised the good people of Ghana used the #BallotBox to express their anger to your #voodoo government.
This is just a tip of the iceberg drawn from the litanies of your broken promises and abysmal records bequeathed to the NDC administration.
Enjoy your weekend, Sir.
Sincerely,
Farid Shamsu-deen.
(A proud NDC/Zongo Footsoldier)
Email : [email protected]
Contact : 0233275280/0244275280
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-The National President of the Association of Liberian Journalists in the Americas (ALJA), Moses D. Sandy is proposing the merger of media institutions in Liberia with similar or identical editorial philosophies. Mr. Sandy said such endeavor would help minimize the extreme poverty, which continues to stall the professional growth and development of the Liberian press. He said the proposed merger would also, create avenues for the strengthening of the financial capacity of media institutions, recruitment and retention of qualified journalists, and improvement in the living conditions of journalists.
Speaking recently when he delivered a paper on ALJAs vision for the Liberian media at the Diaspora Political Consultative Conference held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania under the auspices of the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas (ULAA). The ALJA National President said press freedom the world-over is not measured by the proliferation of substandard and inefficient media institutions, but the content of news stories reported in the media.
Since the ascendency of the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf administration to the political leadership of Liberia in January 2006, the country has witnessed an astronomical growth in media institutions and schools of communication. In todays Liberia, there are 69 radio stations. The radio stations comprise the state owned, Liberia Broadcasting System (LBS), commercial, religious, community, and those operated by schools of communication.
According to media reports, Liberia also, has more than 5 television stations and nearly 40 newspapers. Liberia reportedly has six degree granting schools of communication including the University of Liberia and Cuttington University College (CUC). Despite the media pluralism, Mr. Sandy indicated, the local Liberian press persists to be saddled with issues of non-livable wages, lack of fringe benefits for journalists, destitution, and poor logistical support and staffing. The average monthly salary for a reporter in Liberia is reportedly US $50.
He said most media institutions and journalists are barely surviving due to the nations limited media market. He noted most print and broadcast institutions often scramble for advertisements just to remain functional. The problem is further worsened by the lack of readership, especially in the print area. In the wake of the problem, President Sandy observed advertisers and some selfish politicians most of the times determine and impose their own prices at the detriment of media institutions.
He said the Liberian press is also, impacted by issues of brain drain and inaccessibility. He maintained the media is faced with the exodus of trained and experienced journalists, who are abandoning the profession in search of greener pasture in other disciplines. Commenting on the print media, Mr. Sandy said Newspapers in Liberia continue to struggle with challenges of poor circulation and irregular publications.
He noted several Liberian newspapers rarely appear on the news stand due to the lack of funding. Reportedly less than 20 newspapers are published regularly in the country. He said most of the newspapers are published and circulated only in Monrovia and its environs due to the lack of monetary and logistical support for mass production and distribution throughout the country.
Touching on the broadcast media, the ALJA boss said most radio and TV stations in Liberia are plagued by the problem of intermittent broadcast hours and weak signals. He said most stations are unable to sustain uninterrupted broadcast hours. He said the situation is furthered compounded by weak signals and poor broadcast coverage area. He noted the broadcast signals of some radio and TV stations can hardly travel beyond Monrovia and its environs.
Meanwhile, the ALJA National President says the Association is determined to work in unison with the leadership of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL) and heads of media institutions in addressing journalists welfare and the consolidation of forces in the strengthening of Liberian journalism.
Signed:____________________________
Gardea V. Woodson
National Secretary General
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania- Liberia's Ambassador accredited to the United States of America (USA), Jeremiah Sulonteh, says the Liberian Government has taken no decision on Preposition 24 of the national constitution review process, which seeks to make Liberia a Christian country.
Preposition 24 was advanced by some members of the Christian community and it was adopted as one of several constitutional amendment proposals that evolved from the National Constitution Review Conference held last year in Gbarnga, Bong County. Ambassador Sulonteh said, for now the proposal remains a mere "debate."
The Ambassador maintained the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf administration has taken no political action on whether to make Liberia a Christian country, or not. Speaking recently in the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas (ULAA) Diaspora Political Consultative Conference, Ambassador Sulonteh insisted Christianizing Liberia now as suggested by some members of the Christian community, will make no political or economic difference in the lives of the people.
Eighty five percent of Liberia's population accounts for Christians. The nation's declaration of independence was signed in the Providence Baptist Church in Monrovia in the 1800's. Since Liberia's independence in 1847, members of the Christian faith continue to enjoy preferential treatment in the celebration of public holidays and the dispensation of political power in the country.
However, the Ambassador noted declaring Liberia a Christian country is not the way forward politically. He said "Over the years Liberian Christians and other religious groups have co-existed and they must continue to live in peace and harmony." Ambassador Sulonteh thanked and praised the ULAA National Leadership for organizing the Diaspora Political Consultative Conference. He also, thanked the participants for convening to discuss salient issues that affect the wellbeing of the diaspora Liberian community and their country. "It is time that ULAA and the diaspora Liberian community take leadership role in Liberia," the calm and soft spoken Ambassador pontificated.
He then, underscored the cordial tie which subsists between the Liberian Embassy in Washington, D.C. and the Union. He commended the ULAA leadership for the support it gave the Embassy in the recent renewal of the Ebola Temporary Protective Status (TPS), granted by the US government. The US government through the Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson extended the designations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone for TPS for an additional six months on March 22, 2016. Although there have been significant improvements in the conditions in all three countries since their designations for TPS in November 2014, the US government noted that the lingering effects of the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak and continued recovery challenges support the six-month extension.
He said the ULAA leadership and the Liberian Embassy wrote a letter to the US Department of Homeland Security requesting the renewal of the TPS. Also speaking at the gathering, ULAA National President, Wilmot Kunney, commended Ambassador Sulonteh for the cooperation and support the Liberian Embassy continues to give his administration in addressing issues that affect the lives of Liberians in the Americas. Mr. Kunney said the Diaspora Political Consultative Conference was meant to give opportunity to key political and national leaders in Liberia to deliberate the unfolding political situation in the country and the role of the Diaspora Liberian Community in the process as Liberia marches toward the 2017 general and presidential elections.
The conference brought together a consortium of eminent Liberians, politicians, and heads of diaspora Liberian community organizations. Mr. Gayah Fahnbulleh, the US based Special Envoy to Vice President, Joseph Boakai, and the Association of Liberian Journalists in the Americas (ALJA), National President, Moses D. Sandy, were among some key speakers that delivered papers at the gathering. Mr. Sandy spoke on ALJA's vision for the Liberian Press and the role of the Diaspora Liberian community in the political process of Liberia.
Moses D. Sandy
[email protected]/302-494-4688
08 April 2016 - If the world is to prevent the spread of violent extremism, global efforts need to focus on early intervention, supporting women and children and improving our understanding of the phenomenon, Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland QC has said.
Addressing a major United Nations conference in Geneva, Secretary-General Scotland pledged the Commonwealths commitment to support the United Nations Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism.
There can be no greater responsibility than ensuring the safety and security of our citizens, said the Secretary-General, as she outlined her vision for the Commonwealths own action plan, involving the development of alternative narratives and dialogue, empowering young people, harnessing the power of education and the media, and building an environment that supports good governance, human rights and the rule of law.
The changing nature of violence in todays world is alarming, and it affects us all. I believe this starts with women and children. That means we need to start in the home and in schools, she said, emphasising the need to gather empirical data and to break down silos.
Education about the other, teaching that difference is something to celebrate and not to fear, this needs to start in primary schools, she stressed. The Commonwealth has a long-track record in supporting young people, she added. But this work needs to start earlier and younger than it traditionally has.
Such interventions enable mothers and young people to address social exclusion, ethnic or religious prejudice, and politically-motivated violence at grassroots where they can be potent catalysts for inclusion and help avert alienation.
The Commonwealths Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism will cover four strands, including the development of alternative narratives and dialogue so all Commonwealth citizens can be part of the solution, and helping member countries with good governance, human rights protection and the rule of law, said the Secretary-General in her speech.
The plan will also embrace the power of education and the media to promote greater respect and understanding among communities, and empower young people to be positive agents and role models in our societies, she said.
By promoting alternative narratives, strengthening justice institutions, and building platforms for dialogue, the Commonwealth way is always to encourage positive engagement. Violence can be defeated, but we need the widest and most inclusive alliances of government, international agencies, civil society organisations, private sector actors, legal bodies, educators, youth workers and healthcare professionals, she said.
The Geneva Conference on Preventing Violent Extremism The Way Forward, co-hosted by the Government of Switzerland and the United Nations, is taking place between 7 and 8 April 2016. It was organised to help the international community to share experiences and good practices.
Day two of the conference saw interventions by government ministers, heads of international and regional organisations and heads of UN agencies, following a meeting of senior experts yesterday. The United Nations Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism was developed by the UN Secretary-General and endorsed by the UN General Assembly on 12 February 2016.
In November 2015, Commonwealth Heads of Government in Malta agreed to establish a dedicated unit within the Commonwealth Secretariat to strengthen national, regional and global action on preventing violent extremism. This builds on past work including the publication of the report, Civil Paths to Peace.
In her speech, the Secretary-General also outlined the Commonwealth Secretariat collaboration with UN Women on supporting legal decision makers on cases of violence against women. Because if there isn't peace in the home, there cannot be peace in our world, she said.
Notes to Editors:
Watch the Secretary-Generals address to the UN conference on 8 April 2016:
Read the speech in full: http://goo.gl/TlAjRx
The sad story of this two Accra city campus students and Distance Education students as SRC must be known, I am a student and a law abiding student of University of Ghana, a believer of the current Vice Chancellor Professor Ernest Aryeetey Visions of making university of Ghana world class university. I believe in fair system and right of students. According to Constitution of the Republic of Ghana CHAPTER FIVE FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS 12.
(1)The fundamental human rights and freedoms enshrined in this chapter shall be respected and upheld by the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary and all other organs of government and its agencies and, where applicable to them, by all natural and legal persons in Ghana, and shall be enforceable by the Courts as provided for in this Constitution.
(2)Every person in Ghana, whatever his race, place of origin, political opinion, colour, religion, creed or gender shall be entitled to the fundamental human rights and freedoms of the individual contained in this Chapter but subject to respect for the rights and freedoms of others and for the public interest.
The above chapter state it clear that the right of every person must be ensured. Student at Accra city campus are non resident who do not have any right to attend lectures at university of Ghana main campus legon, but must be at city campus through out their 4 years academic program and the same thing applies to distance education students. The university made it clear to students admitted to Accra city campus and Distance Education on their admission letters that they are not entitled to halls and must not attend lectures at legon campus but only at Accra city campus and Distance Education centers .
Recently all the various halls of residence issued notices of sacking all Accra city campus students who are in their halls and same thing was applied to Distance education students because they are not allowed to sleep at any university of Ghana halls, the halls were made for residents on legon campus but not for city campus and Distance Education centers since those two campuses are far from the main university and the students have been placed at distance education centers and Accra city campus.
The issue about making Accra city campus SRC a JCR contradict the purpose of this two campuses and the vision of having this two campuses. The main vision of the university for putting up Accra city campus is clearly stated below
University of Accra City Campus
The External Degree Centre of the Accra Workers' College which later become known as Accra City Campus was established as the external degree wing of the University of Ghana, in the 1963-1964 academic session. It has been charged with the responsibility of offering, on a part-time basis, the courses which were available to full-time students of the University of Ghana. It is a non-residential and fee-paying Campus of the University.(http://acc.ug.edu.gh/index.php/about-us/about-city-campus.html)
The main purpose for establishing Distance education programme is stated below
Distance Education (SCDE) is to pursue academic programmes and activities towards the realization of the potential growth that exists for investing in the expansion of adult, continuing and distance education programmes which would extend the reach of the University to student populations in formats which the traditional face-to-face classroom learning cannot provided (http://scde.ug.edu.gh/dean/welcome) also fee paying.
Distance education is run across the ten regions of Ghana by the university and if this students are allowed to vote in this year election then some of them have to travelled from upper East Wa,Temale , Ho etc to come to university of Ghana legon to vote and the same thing applied to Accra city campus students.
The questions we must ask ourselves is that if now this students from Accra city campus and Distance Education students are allowed to vote on main campus then the vision of the Vice Chancellor about decongestion of the halls will not work and soon students from Accra city campus and Distance Education students will start to demand for hall of residence and 10 students will be sleeping in rooms made for only 3 students and congestion will start.
I humbly request that they university authorities discourage this idea of allowing University of Ghana Accra city campus students to vote on main campus elections which has nothing to do with the interest of Accra city campus students and Distance Education students instead of those students voting on their campuses to keep the vision of students participation in their activities alive.
Local SRC of Accra city campus have not received any money which is dues paid by Accra city campus students as part of their fees to run students activities which the university of Ghana encourage just because the right of this students to remain a local src body to seek the warfare of their students are being taking away from them. It is our vision that the university of Ghana will be world class university but if we allow students who have been placed as distance education and Accra city campus students are allowed to travel from different part of Ghana to come and vote to somebody has nothing to do with their campus activities and challenges.
As a student of this great university for the pass three years I have never come in contact with the Dean of students of university of Ghana before just because the local SRC at Accra city campus collect all the challenges facing us as students then go to the Dean of students on our behalf to address issues. The former UG-ACC SRC president Mr Andrews was able to get 6 brand new computers, 200 plastic chairs for students at Accra city campus to use for tutorials and a whole lot. What has Mr. Fobi current SRC president of university of Ghana who is encouraging students from Accra city campus and Distance Education students to come to legon campus to vote done for Accra city campus and Distance Education students. Has he even visited this campus before this semester or last semester.
This academic year 2016 / 2017 most students at Accra city campus and Distance Education students complained about smell of the washrooms was bad and need some basic items and since there is no money from the Dean of students to Accra city campus SRC to provide those basic materials to the washrooms so that student will feel comfortable has keep the place with bad smell.
I really want to find out what happens to the SRC dues paid by Distance education students and Accra city campus students, since we have been told by our elected UG-ACC SRC president Mr Delali that there is no money coming from the Dean of students to accra city campus.
What has The SRC president Mr. Fobi and His executives from main campus done for distance education students this academic year 2016/2017, does Mr. Fobi and his executives even knows the number of challenges distance education students are going through across the centers in the country as distance education students.
From the university of Ghana Junior members hand book.
JUNIOR COMMON ROOM (JCR):
There is a Junior Common Room in each Hall of
Residence to which every student in statu pupillari and attached to the Hall is a member.
The JCR has its own constitution. It elects its governing body of officers who seek to protect the interests of junior members of the Hall and provide cultural, social and sporting activities for the Hall. The JCR of a Hall, through its officers, maintains relations with JCRs of other Halls and is a recognised channel of communication between junior members and the Hall authorities. The revenue of the JCR is derived from students contributions and contributions from the University through the Hall Council.
From they above there is no way UG-ACC SRC and Distance Education SRC can be changed to JCR since we pay SRC dues and we don't have any halls to generate revenue from our members to run affairs of students, both students from Accra city campus and Distance Education students are non resident, how will this students be made to pay JCR dues since non of the students sleep in any hall from City campus.
I humbly pled with the university authorities to ensure that the local SRC of both city campus and Distance Education students are maintained in order to discourage students from coming to lectures at main campus, instead of going to city campus and Distance Education centers to have their lectures.
May God bless university of Ghana.
Emmanuel Ashitey
0540981328
A number of Ghanaian scholars and volunteers have set up a foundation to provide social amenities such as wells schools mosques and bore holes in Ghana.
The organization known as Namaa Foundation of Ghana will have its headquarters in Accra but will operate in all parts of the country.
The organization which has been registered with the registrar generals department has a team of Ghanaian Directors made up of Daud Mohamed Tindanwu, Musah Sumaila, and Ahmed Alhasan Salifu.
According to Mohammed Tindanwu the organization will be supported in its activities by donors from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Great Britain. He said the foundation was formed in the country because of its friendly atmosphere and long period of political stability
ALHAJI HAYOUM TOURE CENTRAL MOSQUE
New Ashongman Estates
FINANCIAL REPORT AMOUNT DATE I deposited an amount of Into a suspense Bank Account at the Dome Branch of the GBC Bank pending completion of forms by four signatories of the accounts GHC5, 760 10/09/2015 Amount withdrawn from the Suspense account to pay our Watchman, fix a damaged part of the water tank, Diesel for the generator and Other expenses by Billy and Razak GHC 1,000 25/09/2015 BALANCE GHC4, 760
Mr. Billy and Razak Odoi who disbursed the GHC1, 000 withdrawn from our account will provide justifications for their expenditure
By Alhaji Alhasan Abdulai
DATE
10.04.2016 LISTEN
With an annual economic growth rate of about 5% over the last decade, driven mainly by the commodities boom, African cities have seen skyrocketing population growth, forcing governments to face a host of development challenges.
Africa is urbanizing at a rate of 4% per year, according to UN-Habitat, the United Nations agency tasked with assisting national programmes relating to human settlements through the provision of capital and technical assistance, particularly in developing countries. Population shifts from rural to urban areas lead to a number of challenges such as overcrowding, pollution and crime, among others.
Urbanization in the Africa of today is an untapped tool for development and economic growth, says Joan Clos, the executive director of UN-Habitat.
Over the next 15 years, cities in Africa will experience higher growth rates than other regions of the world, predicts Oxford Economics, a British firm that specialises in global forecasting and quantitative analysis for business and government, with Cape Town, Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg and Luanda becoming Africas major economic giants.
Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi, the secretary-general of United Cities and Local Governments-Africa (UCLG-A), a body representing over 1,000 African cities, describes sustainable cities as cities of the future today, meaning those that can withstand the intense pressure from rapid development and urban investments but have a low impact on the environment.
Economic growth and a rapidly growing population of about 1 billion mean more urbanization in Africa than in any other continent, with major cities in Africa currently contributing about $700 billion to the continents GDP. This figure is set to grow to $1.7 trillion by 2030, notes Oxford Economics.
UN-Habitat says rapid urbanization, especially in cities in the developing world, is bringing challenges in the distribution of people and resources, as well as in land use, which leads to inefficient land-use patterns. Cities growing horizontally are struggling to deal with increasing urban populations and are not likely to be sustainable over the long term because of challenges with congestion, infrastructure, pollution and social disaggregation.
An increase in migration from rural to urban areas can exacerbate poverty and inequality as people pour into the cities in search of jobs and opportunities, straining available services such as water, transportation and garbage collection.
Urbanization, particularly in the developing world, has been accompanied by increased levels of crime, violence, and lawlessness. Global studies show that 60% of all urban residents in developing countries have been victims of crime at least once over the past five years, 70% of them in Latin America and Africa, says UN-Habitats website.
Women and children are often the most affected, especially when fear hinders their access to basic services in the city. Crime and insecurity in the city restrict urban social and economic development, and often jeopardize opportunities and policies that support the poor in urban areas.
Sustainable cities
The need for sustainable cities is particularly urgent, considering cities generate over 70% of global carbon emissions. The one billion slum dwellers worldwide suffer the impacts of air pollution from indoor cooking, proximity to traffic and industry, contaminated water and inadequate sanitation, among other environmental health risks.
UN-Habitat suggests a three-pronged approach to sustainable cities, based on effective and comprehensive urban legislation, proper urban planning and design, and adequate financing for projects. The three principles can be levers for the transformation of cities and human settlements into centres of environmental, economic and social sustainability.
Climate change is a recent consideration in the planning of sustainable cities. Africas urban environments are particularly susceptible to flooding and outbreaks of diseases such as malaria. However, these can be mitigated through proper planning, effective policy implementation, the protection of ecologically sensitive areas, reforestation and the use of waste in energy generation, among other measures.
Given the economic and social challenges faced by many African cities, can they offer a high quality of life for residents through the provision of efficient basic services while at the same time ensuring that the environment is safe and clean?
Yes, potentially, says Mr. Mbassi, adding that this would require a pace of development in Africa that should not necessarily resemble that of the West.
We should plan cities according to their specific situations and the needs of the local people, to ensure that cities include everyone and the poor are not marginalized in terms of accessing all the services a city has to offer, Mr. Mbassi told Africa Renewal in an interview.
A new agenda
Working with the UN Economic Commission for Africa, UCLG-A developed the Africa Urban Agenda (AUA) to be adopted by African leaders in July 2016. The Agenda consists of actions Africa needs to take to improve its cities and settlements and to promote urbanization as a catalyst for Africas structural transformation. It represents Africas inputs into the Global Urban Agenda to be adopted at Habitat III, a conference on housing and sustainable urban development to be hosted by UN-Habitat in October 2016 in Quito, Ecuador.
Countries attending Habitat III, the first UN world summit after the adoption of the SDGs and the Paris climate change agreement, are expected to adopt the New Urban Agenda for the 21st century.
It is clear that urban planning requires a shift from viewing urbanization mainly as a problem, to seeing it as a tool for development, UN-Habitat says in UN-Habitat Global Activities Report 2015: Increasing Synergy for Greater National Ownership.
At a meeting organized by UN-Habitat and the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in Ethiopia in March 2014, called The Role of Urbanization in the Structural Transformation of Africa, the director of political affairs at the African Union Commission, Khabele Matlosa, said that African countries need to adopt new development models designed to take advantage of urbanization by facilitating structural transformation, creating jobs and addressing social inequality and poverty while creating habitable settlements with equal opportunities for all.
Starting smart to end slums
Although with good planning urbanization, industrialization, sustained economic growth and human development can be mutually reinforcing, there is urgent need for safe settlements too, according to a report by UN-Habitat, The State of the African Cities 2014: Re-Imagining Sustainable Urbanization.
Sub-Saharan Africa has a slum population of 199.5 million, which, according to UN-Habitat, is a sign of a poorly planned and managed urban sector and, in particular, a malfunctioning housing sector.
Africa is home to big slums such as West Point in Liberias capital, Monrovia, with more than 75,000 people, and Kenyas Kibera slum in Nairobi, which is the largest in Africa, with over 2 million people.
Africa requires around 4 million housing units per year, with over 60% of the demand required to accommodate urban residents. Effective planning regulations and their enforcement will help cities deal with the growth of informal settlements and provide a map for how the cities will grow and develop, while promoting economic growth.
Africa Renewal
10.04.2016 LISTEN
A recent Pew research poll of eleven countries showed that ISIS has its highest support among Nigerian Muslims.
According to the November 2015 poll, 20% of Muslims in Nigeria support the mass murdering savages and rapists known as Islamic State. This is nearly twice that of Malaysia (12%), the Muslim country with the next highest ISIS support.
Given that Muslims comprise roughly half of Nigerias 160 million people, 20% of 80 million Nigerian Muslims comes to about 16 million ISIS supporters. It goes without saying that the overwhelming majority of these 16 million tiny minority of extremists are in our religious violence prone core North.
One would think that with the ongoing horrific nightmare of wanton Boko Haram massacres, which has devastated large swathes of our North east and wrecked the northern economy, our Muslim compatriots up North would have learnt their lesson by now and steer clear off religious extremism.
Instead we are learning there may be up to 16 million supporters of our local ISIS affiliate Boko Haram a.k.a. Islamic State of West Africa.
Reports also abound of Nigerian Muslims heading off to join Al-Baghdadis Caliphate in Syria and Iraq, while our DSS recently arrested a local ISIS recruiter.
As if our ugly reputation as an underachieving nation of scammers and mind-boggling corruption is not bad enough, millions of Nigerian Muslims are intent on further rubbishing our already battered image.
Not only do we have the highest ISIS support, Boko Haram is adjudged the deadliest Islamist terror groupon the planet, with a death toll surpassing its mother ISIS. On the international scene, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the pantie bomber tried to take down an American airliner, while 2 Yoruba Muslims butchered a British soldier to death in London.
A few years ago, before Americas Seal team 6 took out Osama bin Laden, a Pew poll showed that most Nigerian Muslims (54%) supported the late Al-Qaeda terror leader. That was the second only to Palestinians in the global study. The same study found that close to half of Nigerian Muslims (43%) support suicide bombing.
For those of us living here in our Islamist north, none of this is surprising, given that posters, almanacs and car stickers of the late Al-Qaeda leader were quite popular here.
Some of our northern Muslims even jubilated after the 9/11 attacks on America, reigniting a just concluded ethno-sectarian clash in Jos back then in September 2001. And when U.S. responded by bombarding Taliban Afghanistan, Muslims in Kano rioted attacking churches and killing Christians in October 2001.
What more, in one of his propaganda tapes to Al-Jazeera, Bin Laden infamously mentioned Nigeria as one of the countries ripe for Islamic revolution. So its no surprise the Al-Qaeda spin-off, ISIS is a huge hit among millions of Nigerian Muslims.
With 16 million pro-ISIS Muslims in the country, we are not likely to see the end of its Nigerian affiliate - Boko Haram - anytime soon. Never mind the bogus claim by Buhari administration that the Jihadi insurgents have been technically defeated whatever that means.
Even if Boko Haram is defeated, we still wouldnt be out of the woods when 16 million of our Muslim compatriots believe it is alright to massacre, abduct and rape their fellow Nigerians on account of religious differences.
Thats a ticking time bomb that is bound to disastrously explode in the not so distant future. It would only be a matter of time for another Boko Haram, Maitasine or some other group of Islamist savages to resurface.
At best occasional eruptions of religious violence on the flimsiest of excuses would continue in our Islamist North as in the past. We cannot build a truly united one Nigeria with this kind of deep seated religious hate.
Northern leaders (religious and political) who hypocritically proclaim one Nigeria are largely responsible for this sordid state of affairs that is inimical to our continued existence as one nation.
They dont seem to understand that in a religiously diverse country like Nigeria, where Muslims are not the clear majority, secularism is the only guarantee of peaceful coexistence for a truly unified nation.
Their fervent agitation for the limb-amputating stoning-to-death barbarism glorified as total Sharia in the early part of this political dispensation, whipped up the Islamist extremism that gave rise to the ongoing Boko Haram insurgency.
Back then in Borno, Ali Modu Sherrif allied with the local Islamist group (Boko Haram) to ride the Sharia wave to gubernatorial victory in 2003 enthusiastically voted in by Sharia-mongering Borno Muslims. They are now stewing in the boiling cauldron brewed by their own extremism and intolerance.
Anyone with half a brain could have seen this coming, given the prior history of religious violence in our Islamist north. But not the power hungry northern Muslim leaders who exploited religion for shortsighted political gain.
Its the same sad story in much of the Islamist world. For decades Pakistan promoted Jihadist terror against India, and installed Al-Qaeda linked Taliban in Afghanistan, which was responsible for 9/11.
Most of the worlds leading Jihadi terrorists passed through training camps in Pakistan - 9/11 hijackers, 2005 London 7/7 bombers, 2004 Madrid bombers and Richard Reed, the shoe bomber. Pakistan even hid Bin Laden for several years until U.S. Seals took him out without notifying Islamabad.
Today Pakistan itself is ravaged by a destructive Jihadi insurgency with large swathes of the country outside government control.
For decades Saudi Arabia promoted Wahabi hate in mosques and Islamist schools it built and ran around the world. The Saudis along with other Sunni Gulf Arab nations also armed and funded the anti-Assad Jihad that later gave rise to ISIS.
Today, Saudi Arabia itself has been attacked by both Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Even as Palestinians continue to revel in murderous Jew hatred, repeatedly spurning peaceful resolution of the conflict, they suffer grievous human rights abuses under the tyranny of both Fatah and Hamas. Consequently polls show many Palestinians actually prefer Israeli rule although they dare not admit it publicly.
The simple lesson here is that Muslim societies which condone and promote Islamist hate and intolerance, will eventually be consumed by it. Hence Muslims are themselves the number one victims of Islamic terror. In Libya, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and even here in parts of northern Nigeria, it is largely Muslims killing fellow Muslims.
The sad part of it all is that these Muslim savages refuse learn from the adverse consequences of their intolerance, as Christians did in the Middle ages.
Consequently, even with the ongoing Boko Haram insurgency that has wasted thousands of innocent Nigerian lives, millions of Nigerian Muslims have doubled down in their extremism, as evident from their inexplicable support for ISIS.
And despite unconvincing denials that Boko Harams abduction and rape of Chibok girls was Islamic, we still hear disturbing reports of abductions, forced conversion and forced marriage of non-Muslim girls in our Islamist north.
It is long past time for religious and political leaders in our North to unequivocally come out in support of a secular Nigeria, and work assiduously to achieve it.
When northern state governments refuse to issue C of O to churches; run Sharia police (Hisbah) that arrests Muslims for not fasting during Ramadan, or confiscate and destroy alcoholic drink shipments belonging to non-Muslims, they are encouraging the religious extremism and intolerance that occasionally erupts in violence.
Today, largely because of the unwelcome intrusion of religion into politics, we can no longer talk of one North, never mind one Nigeria.
Kaduna, the former capital of the North is now partitioned into Muslim and Christian halves. Schools in our Islamist North are also largely religiously segregated. For several years Plateau has been a recurring flashpoint of ethno-sectarian violence.
In the same vein, when in 2011 Northern Muslims violently protested against GEJs victory, retaliatory violence against Hausa-Fulani Muslims only occurred in the North itself Zonkwa, Kaduna state.
Not in the Christian SS/SE where GEJ hails from and had his largest support. Significantly, the SS/SE did not respond violently to Buharis 2015 electoral victory.
If the shoe had been on the other foot and GEJ had won the 2015 polls in a free & fair contest, would Buhari and his supporters have been that gracious in defeat? Given that the General had already threatened bloodshed - kare jini, biri jini.'
Thus the politicization of religion has had devastating impact on our North and the nation at large. It has plagued us with a vicious 13 year Jihadist insurgency and further polarized the country along religious lines, thereby undermining "one Nigeria", as well as our fledgling democracy.
Most disturbingly, it has exacerbated Islamic extremism, with 16 million potential Muslim mass murderers threatening the fragile peace of our troubled nation.
10.04.2016 LISTEN
MTN Ghana CEO, Ebenezer Twum Asante has been named the CEO of the Year in the Directors/CEO category of Kwahuman Achievers Awards at Obo in the Eastern region.
This was announced during the third Kwahuman Achievers Awards ceremony organized as part of the Kwahu Easter Festival.
In his acceptance speech, Mr. Asante expressed his gratitude to the organizers and people of Kwahu for the consideration given him. He said, this award is an inspiration and challenge for me to work harder and excel in my role.
The ceremony was organized by the Kwahu Development Association to honour citizens of Kwahu who have excelled in their areas of work and are contributing to the development of Ghana.
The awards ceremony attracted prominent citizens of Kwahu from different sectors including Academia, Medicine, Banking, Insurance, Automobile and Consumer Goods.
The Kwahu Easter Festival has been supported by MTN Ghana for eight years, and this years edition was no exception. MTN donated cash, airtime, assorted drink hampers and MTN souvenirs to the traditional council and interacted with the chiefs of Abetifi,Obo, Obomeng and Mpraeso in separate ceremonies.
During the presentation ceremony to the chiefs, the Commercial Senior Manager for MTN South East Business District, David G. Boadi re-affirmed MTNs commitment to supporting the festivals.
He said, we have taken the responsibility to support traditional festivals each year across the country to keep alive the values and principles that identify us as Africans.
Mr. Boadi continued, beyond these donations to various traditional councils, MTN invests in extensive corporate social interventions through its Foundation across the country.
He stated that since the establishment of the MTN Ghana Foundation in 2007, MTN has invested more than GH 21.5 million in 135 major Corporate Social Investment projects in the areas of Health, Education and Economic Empowerment. These projects have directly impacted an estimated three million people across many communities in Ghana.
The Chiefs and traditional council members expressed their appreciation to MTN for the continuous support to the Kwahu Traditional Council.
Ebenezer Twum Asante assume the position of CEO for MTN Ghana,
effective 1 July 2015 when returned to Ghana after serving for two years as CEO of MTN Rwanda.
He replaces Serame Taukobong, who left MTN to pursue other interests.
Ebenezer Asante is the first Ghanaian to head Ghanas leading telecommunications company, MTN Ghana.
10.04.2016 LISTEN
One of the most beautiful things about our indigenous languages is that they often teach their best lessons through proverbs, not direct assertion.
And some of those proverbs are so profound that they take your breath away. Whether framed in metaphorical terms or presented as rhetorical questions, they demonstrate what one might call truth a priori. That means truth that can be recognised at face value or immediately; self-evident truth,in other words.
Such a proverb formed the topic of the essay question in the Twi language examination, when I was writing my GCE O Levels. It stuck in my head and has remained there ever since. It was this:
Nnmafo se tete asoe wnnso h bio;
Na dn nti na muka nan abisa no,
Wommu biako nngu mma ennka abien p?
(Moderners say that the resting place of ancient times is no longer theirresting-place. That being so, why don't they remove one of the three legs of the traditional kitchen stove so that only two would remain?)
I guessed that this question was set by the authority on the Twi language at that time C A Akrofi of Akropong Akuapem. He had authored several books on the Twi language, including Twi Kasa
Mmra (Twi Grammar) and a collection of short stories: Mmodenbo Bu Mmusu Abasa So.
(Endeavour Breaks Down The Power of Misfortune). One wonders why these excellent books have not been republished by the Ministry if Education. Does the neglect illustrate the fact that our local languages are no longer an important part of our education?
People of Akrofi's calibre were such great teachers that even when they were examining you, they were simultaneously teaching you: it wasn't enough for them to find out how much you knew already. I enjoyed writing that paper, because it was such an unexpected invitation to think.
I said the proverb stuck in my mind, and the reason is this: I have been wondering, in recent days, about where we got the new politics we have been practising from. If you read the articles on the Opinion Pages of Ghanaweb, especially Say It Loud, you will be shocked at the number of postings usually lifted from the rented press in Ghana that are entirely dedicated to the defamationof politicians. Hardly do you see an article discussing a policy issue that one of the parties has raised! Personal-attacks-personal-attacks-personal-attacks-attacks nothing more!
The more empty-headed politicians, in their turn, realising that our extremely lazy media personnel prefer to use news items that amount to personal attacks, do not hesitate to turn everything into personal attacks. And so the evil feeds on itself. As Shakespeare would say, As if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on!
The depths to which our media personnel have sunk were exposed for all to see recently when one radio journalist claimed that a very prominent politician had threatened to kill him! He boasted, among other things, that he had the evidence: the threats were stored on his phone!
At once, one asked: how could such a fellow become a radio presenter? You call yourself a journalist and a very prominent politician 'threatens to kill you, and you wait until his party has formally boycotted your radio station for alleged bias, before you remember that he had threatened to killyou?
As a journalist, who is supposed to educate the public, did you know that threatening to kill someone is a criminal offence? If you did not, then you are abysmally ignorant and the question to e asked is how could you possibly be a journalist? If you did, why did you not go and complain to the police but wait until now?
Secondly, if you are so daft that you could not pick on anyone else but a man who was a prominent lawyer before he entered politics to accuse of such crimes, then what qualifies you to be a journalist? As a journalist, you are supposed to exercise judgement about what to say or not to say.
If you could not analyse your own situation and reach the conclusion that it would sound strange for a very good lawyer to text threats to you which you could use as evidence to incriminate him; if you could not realise that a lawyer could abuse you one million times over, without using words that would break the law, then indeed, what sort of journalist are you?
Then, when you have done your worst and your father has joined you in your enterprise of politicallyinspired character assassination you meekly retract your false assertions and blithely apologise! And, of course, your professional association looks on and smiles to itself: the antagonists have smoked the peace pipe. All is well and good.
I started this article by invoking the past. Listen: this country experienced very dangerous social tension between 1954 and 1956. Some people lost their lives. But despite the violence, politics was still aboutissues. The National Liberation Movement (NLM) wanted Ghana to be governed under a federal system. The Convention People's Party wanted Ghana to continue to live under a unitary
system of government. There were cogent arguments for and against each view. There were additionalissues: for instance, the NLM also wanted the sale of cocoa to overseas buyers to be taken away from the Cocoa Marketing Board [i.e. the predatory government] and placed in the hands of the farmers themselves. The CPP wanted to retain the arbitrary system inherited from the British.
These were life and death issues and they were debated ad nauseam. But although within the NLM fold, there were people who had worked closely with Dr Kwame Nkrumah in the early years of the CPP, none of them turned the debate into a salacious discussion if personal foibles. For instance, Mr Joe Appiah, was actually the former representative of Dr Kwame Nkrumah in London. Yet he became an NLM kingpin. Imagine what some of our modern political operatives would do if they obtained sensitive, confidential information regarding the personal life of a leader from whom they later parted!
The question is: how come the children of that generation of fairlydecent politicians have descended so low into the gutter today that their own parents would disown them if told of how they conduct politics? Suppose one of these wily old politicians were to ask any of the communications loud-mouths of today, But what at all are the issues that separate you from the other party? what would the answer be? WE want to control the distribution of the national cake?
Well, many of our ancients did not know what a cake was. But they knew what a pot containing fufuoor tuwo was. And they would have told our propagandists this: If you struggle too hard over a pot containing food, the pot may break and spill the food on the ground. And then, no-one can neat it!
But would our propagandists even understand that proverb?
By the way, the reason why you can't break off any part of the old-style stove is that if you did so, it would deposit your food into the fire pronto! Someone found that out and left posterity with an excellent means of cooking food, when you have nothing but clay to work with.
Kumasi, Ghana - The Ghana Internet Safety Foundation signed a two-year partnership agreement Wednesday April 6 with a U.S-based cybersecurity awareness organization.
The announcement comes in wake of the Ghana Internet Safety Foundation's effort to create public sensitization of global cyber awareness issues affecting the growing concern in Ghana's booming cyber industry.
We are excited about this partnership to promote public interest in advocacy campaign in Ghana and across the sub-region to the benefit of all citizens and respective stakeholders," said Emmanuel Adinkrah, C.E.O of Ghana Internet Safety Foundation.
Adinkrah added the partnership focuses on a campaign strategy based on three easy actionable steps: STOP. THINK. CONNECT. The campaign will advise all internet users to take security measures, understand the consequences of their behavior and actions over the usage of the internet.
He praised the concerted efforts of Ghana Internet Safety Foundation's Senior Policy Analyst and the Corporate Affairs Manager, Kwasi Mensah Nyarko and Andrews K. Nyantakyi in facilitating this agreement.
"This agreement and partner will foster an opportunity to provide toolkits in support of Ghana Internet Safety Foundation's effort to educate Ghanaians on the importance of staying safe in this our Cyber World," Kara Wright, director of Digital Strategy at National Cyber Security Alliance wrote in an email. "We need one voice when it comes to this fight."
"Nothing goes away once it is posted online." added Andrews Nyantakyi, Corporate Affairs Manager. " You would take you and me to work in creating a safer internet for our generation. We preach about good citizens but no one talks about staying good online. We need to all become good online citizen. This is what G.I.S.F stands for, to educate and provide resources on staying safe online."
STOP. THINK. CONNECT. is the first-ever coordinated message powered by National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and the Anti-Phishing Work Group (APGW) to provide unified online message that could be preached worldwide to promote safety and community development.
By:
Jennifer Nyantakyi
[email protected]
Beaufort, South Carolina.
IN the last few days, I have read lectures, speeches and opinions about leadership and how Ghana can be made better. They contain the same sentiments I have been hearing since I was first assigned my first bed at OKESS.
There is a wilful, collective reluctance to candidly call out those destroying our nation. Despite fine speeches and sermons, our actions don't match our verbal love of country. We claim to be against violence in our country even while we support leaders who support and encourage violence. We claim to be against corruption while supporting the very leaders who practice it. We verbally abhor drugs and yet admire and respect known drug dealers and users. We profess to admire public service but have nothing but contempt for hardworking public spirited men who are poor. It goes on and on.
I first learnt of this gap between our ideals and who we are when I was the NUGS president. I went to visit a friend. His father hugged me and extolled the bravery of the student leaders who were fighting Rawlings. When I left, he warned his son to stay clear of our demonstrations. In return, his son posed a question for the ages, " Dad, if what they are doing is as important as you stated, why should I not join them? If I should not help in that important work, whose children should do it?".
A few years later, I was reminded of this when I saw a recommendation written by the Dean of the Ghana Medical School to support my application for admission to University of Toronto. "Perhaps Mr. Kennedy has learnt the art of living the hard way. I believe that given another chance, he will make better choices and focus on his career". It cut like a knife.
To be fair, our history has witnessed it's fair share of moments or periods of bravery . Here are a few to make every Ghanaian chest erect with pride:
---Yaa Asantewaa marching to war against the British
-- Sargeant Adjetey and Co marching to the castle for their rights and paying with their lives
--- J.B. Danquah delivering his summation in re:Akoto
--- Afrifa, Gbedemah, Paa Willie and others taking on Archeampong through PMFJ
--- Justice Abban refusing to help Archeampong rig the Unigov referendum
--- Ft.Lt. Rawlings giving voice to the suffering of the masses during his trial at Burma Hall after his abortive coup
--- Elizabeth Ohene ' s editorial questioning "Let the blood flow" showing she had more brass in her boobs than a thousand men in their balls
---- Sam Okudzeto inspiring students with his keynote for the ages at the 1983 NUGS congress
--- The students of Ghana opposing the 31st December uprising
---- Adu Boahen denouncing the "culture of silence" and the "men on horseback "
--- The "kume preko demonstrators"
We do not see such acts anymore.We seem to think vigilance is not required during democracy.
That is wrong. Corruption by elected leaders is just as bad as corruption by soldiers.
Violence by civilians is just as bad as violence by soldiers.
We are accountable to God and posterity for the crimes of the leaders we choose with our votes or support with our silence. The ghost of children denied education will ask for the retribution of a just God against us; just like the ghost of those who died because NHIS was killed while we looked on or away!
When we sing, "And help us to resist oppressors rule" we must mean it. When we sing "Aduru me ne wo so so se yebe y3 bi atoa so", we must live it!
The bible says" And ye shall know the truth and it shall make you free" Do you know the truth about Ghana and do you speak and live it?
Let me end with MLK:
" Cowardice asks the question, is it safe?
Expediency asks the question, is it politic?
Vanity asks the question, is it popular?
But conscience asks the question, is it right?
And there comes a a time we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic nor popular but one must take it because it is right"
What question do you ask yourself about Ghana on issues?
Believe in Ghana and stand for it.
Representatives of the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS), and civil society organizations (CSOs) in West Africa have met in Accra to deliberate on the successful operation of the Community Strategic Framework (CSF).
The meeting which was organised by the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI) and ECOWAS, came off on April 8, with over thirty (30) participants from the various West Africa States.
The meeting, according to the Executive Director of WACSI, Nana Asantewa Afadzinu, was in fulfilment of a directive emanating from the seventy-fifth(75th) Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers that The voice of Civil Society be mainstreamed into the Community Strategic Framework ( CSF ) 2016-2020 document.
The CSF would ensure that the views of CSOs and professional bodies in the ECOWAS Member States are reflected and mainstreamed into the Community Strategic Framework as directed by the Council of Members.
This is imperative owing to the role of CSOs in facilitating the consolidating of the foundation for the creation of a prosperous, integrated and peaceful West Africa through deepening the process of socio-economic development; deepening the process of political cohesion and participation; expanding and improving infrastructure facilities, and others.
Participants, therefore, focused their CSF discussions on: Gaps identified in the CSF; Community Strategy for disseminating the CSF; Financing the CSF and the implementation arrangement for the CSF.
Among the many recommendations made by the participants into the finalisation of the CSF include the developing of a clear communication strategy to disseminate the Communication Strategic Framework throughout the ECOWAS Member States; setting up a technical working group with representation from key (CSOs) in Member States to meet regularly.
At the end of the meeting, a communique was developed, and signed by the Executive Director of WACSI, Nana Asantewa Afadzinu and the Director of Strategic Planning Directorate of the ECOWAS Commission, ESSIEN Abel Essien.
We, representatives of Civil Society and professional bodies in the ECOWAS Member States, who participated in the ECOWAS Strategic Planning Directorate meeting with the West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF), in fulfilment of a directive emanating from the 75th (seventy-fifth) Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers, that the voice of Civil Society be mainstreamed into the Community Strategic Framework (CSF)2016 2020 document.
Hereby make the following declaration:
Mindful that the Community Strategic Framework (CSF) document that was discussed with the Heads of National Offices in Member States and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) under the umbrella of WACSOF in November 2014, was also presented at the 75th Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers;
Determined to ensure that the views of CSOs and professional bodies in the ECOWAS Member States are reflected and mainstreamed into the CSF as directed by Council of Ministers;
Acknowledging the role of the CSOs in facilitating the consolidation of the foundation for the creation of a prosperous, integrated and peaceful West Africa through:
Deepening the process of socio-economic development
Forging and consolidating regional economic and monetary integration
Deepening the process of political cohesion and participation
Mobilizing and sustaining societal and institutional support
Expanding and improving infrastructural facilities
Welcoming the collaboration between WACSOF, WACSI and the ECOWAS Strategic Planning Directorate that has made it possible for this important meeting to take place;
Participants agreedthat CSOs are non-governmental and voluntary which are non-profit and pursuing specific interest (s) towards human development and comprise academic institutions, trade unions, business associations, think tanks, media, NGOs, and private organisation with interest in ensuring that the performance of ECOWAS programmes are improved;
Participants at the meeting deliberatedon the relationship between ECOWAS and CSOs of Member States especially within the context of the CSF;
The deliberations focused on the following key areas; (1) Gaps identified in the CSF, (2) Communication Strategy for disseminating the CSF, (3) Financing the CSF, (4) ImplementationArrangements for the CSF-the role of CSOs.
Participants hereby recommend the following as inputs into the finalisation of the CSF:
Consider all amendments proposed at this meeting to address gaps identified. Theseinclude how civic participation will be deployed and the placement of gender in goal 4;
Develop a clear communication strategy to disseminate the CSFthroughout the ECOWAS Member States, taking note of new social media channels whilst still utilizing existing channels of traditional media and traditional methods of communication.
Develop and strengthen relationships with government departments, associations, faith-based organisations and social movements.
Set up a technical working group with representation from key CSOs in Member States to meet regularly and track progress on all recommendations as outlined in this communique and also in the report for this meeting;
Ensure sustainable financing of the CSF implementation. Recommendations include: dedicating a portion of the Community Levy which may require a clear budget line for CSOs within the ECOWAS annual budget; and donated funds from emerging African foundations, indigenous philanthropists, strategic bank (ECOBANK) and the diaspora.
Reorganise the current national structure of ECOWAS to better align and be more responsive to CSOs across Member States;
Create a linkage between ECOWAS National Offices and WACSOF national platforms for closer collaboration;
Strengthen the relationship between ECOWAS National Offices and the broader CSOs constituency for the implementation of the CSF;
Make availableto CSOs all information on the CSF ahead of its implementation for them to fulfil their roles;
Capitalise on WACSOF as an umbrella organisation for implementation of the CSF at both the regional and national level; and
Request a comprehensive National Implementation Plan with a deadline / time frame from Member States.
Done in Accra-Ghana, on behalf of the Delegates
April, 2016
10.04.2016 LISTEN
So it is coming to pass that the futile attempt by Omane Boamah to start a controversy against His Excellency John Agyekum Kufuor with regards to the Panama Papers is nothing but a trivial storm in a tea cup. And the amount suspected is approximately $75,000 (seventy-five thousand US Dollars), not enough to purchase the vehicle that Omane Boamah drives at the expense of the Ghanaian tax payer, of course.
All the same I agree that if the nation's money is involved there should be some answers. But before H.E. President Kufuor is called upon to do that, the nation demands explanations to a few questions that have really cast slurs of thievery, corruption, and treasonable insults to the integrity of the Ghanaian:
1. Omane Boamah, how many fuel stations have you established using the government's resources? After all, how much is your salary? How many trucks do you have and how many buildings have you put up? We know that you have some investments abroad, how much is involved? You cannot say that they are bequests because your family is not super rich.
2. Okudzeto Ablakwa should also be made to reveal how he managed to estabish so many fuel stations and own over 50 fuel tankers and investments in construction as well, especially that when the late Atta Mills brought him into government, he barely had a few tattered pants and one pair of worn out shoes. It is no wonder that Rawlings described your lot as babies with sharp teeth,
3. Kwadwo Twum Boafo has investments in the far east to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. Did he inherit the government of Ghana or the nation? Where does he get the hundreds of thousands of dollars that he sends overseas regularly?
4. Where did the extra 290 million dollars of the Ameri deal go? Whose pockets did that amount find its way into?
5. The President, H.E John Dramani Mahama, must come clean from the accusations leveled against him. He was said to have acquired billions of dollars in cash, investments and properties. For example, word made the rounds that he has a huge luxury hotel in Dubai, a palace which shares wall with Asongtaba's villa in Dubai too, three huge cargo vessels in Tokyo and multitudes of investments elsewhere.
6. If you want Kufuor to answer to some controversial panama papers, then you must also answer to the usage of government vehicles to campaign for the NDC; stealing of the nation's vehicles for NDC campaign; the galamsey mines that are owned by Okudzeto Ablakwa, yourself, Asiedu Nketia, and your thieving bunch of hypocrites.
7. Saada, Gyeeda and other fake initiatives that John Mahama used to allow his cronies the opportunity to steal the nation. Those who were caught were taken away from their positions and relocated as ambassadors etc. Where is the money that you stole from Ghanaians in the form of judgment debts to woyome and so on?
8. Alfred Agbesi Woyome said that he bribed the Attorney General one million Ghana cedis to make a foolish case out of his daring theft of 51 million; and she did. If you are able to retrieve that amount and others paid to Barton Oduro and Betty Mould Iddrisu, then have the audacity to ask H.E. President Kufuor to answer to some panama papers. For now, you are as neck deep in theft and corruption as Ghanaians are in poverty.
9. The 23 million US Dollars that you stole under the pretext of resurfacing the Kumasi airport runway. That runway could not have cost more than $3 million US Dollars.
10. The Kejetia market that you pegged at 290 million US Dollars but will never cost the nation more than 9 million.
Such thieves as your lot are, and you have the audacity to ask President Kufuor to account for some meager amount of money just because someone says so on a paper issued in Panama. When you account for all the billions of stolen moneys, then His Excellency John Agyekum Kufuor will account for the negligible 75000 USD (seventy-five thousand US Dollars), which is not even a fraction of the amount that Felix Ofosu Kwakye took along in hard cash to buy property with his mother and sister as I was informed from reliable sources barely a couple of years into the Atta Mills Presidency.
Shame on you Omane Boamah. You see, you are such a duplicitous character wanting so desperately to score cheap political points that will not serve your NDC any better. Well, sometimes I cannot blame you, afterall it is only people of your calibre that make up the NDC. As for elections 2016 NDC will lose "portor".
So just shut up Omane Boamah!!!
10.04.2016 LISTEN
The UK government has announced that it will stop funding Ghana's democratic activities beginning next year.
Ghana has benefited from donor support for its elections over the last two decades, but according to the UK Minister of International Development, Desmond Swayne, Ghana's democracy has matured over the years and does not need financial support from the UK.
Mr. Desmond Swayne announced that a 4-million programme to strengthen democratic governance would mark the UK's last investment in democratic structures in Ghana.
Under this Programme, personnel of the Electoral Commission (EC), the Ghana Police Service, the Judiciary and civil society organisations (CSOs) will be supported to undergo training to upscale their skills in handling security and judicial issues related to elections and other democratic governance matters.
He said the 4-million package was to strengthen the EC, the police, the Judiciary and CSOs for them to deal promptly with good governance issues and further enhance Ghana's image as a beacon of democracy in the sub-region.
Speaking at a forum in Accra, Mr. Swayne described Ghana as having established a fearsome reputation as being a beacon for development in Africa hence the decision to cease the donor support.
Because of that and because of the fact that Ghana is becoming low middle income country, I anticipate that this will be the last of such investment that we will make in democratic structures of this sort.
Mr. Swayne entreated Ghanaians to view this move as a recognition of Ghana having come of age as far as having a sustainable democracy is concerned.
That is a measure of your success that we expect you as you go forward to be able to fund your democracy from your own resources.
-citifmonline
10.04.2016 LISTEN
The Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), says it is investigating recent cases in which expatriate employers unjustifiably abuse their Ghanaian employees.
An Italian Supervisor, Manlio Maggiorotto, chained a Ghanaian employee to a container for allegedly loitering around during working hours days.
This was shortly after a Korean employer slapped another Ghanaian with a piece of hot pizza at Peter Pan restaurant in Accra.
Reacting to these developments, the Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ, Joseph Whittal, said the commission is investigating these cases and will soon come out with its findings.
He further asked those employers to desist from such acts.
. While as a country we are interested in getting investments into the country, the investors must take into consideration the fact that they are coming to operate under a regime of law where human rights of every person, not only Ghanaians is guaranteed by the constitution and so if you treat anybody in a manner as if he is an animal, the laws of Ghana will certainly be triggered
Mr. Whittal also refuted claims that most expatriates are often left off the hook because they are often perceived to be working in the interest of Ghanaians.
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If the evidence exist and people have been maltreated in a certain way they should be able to report this case and we will certainly investigate and come out with strong recommendation not only to the management company in Ghana but external companies.
TUC demands justice
A few days ago the Trades Union Congress (TUC) demanded justice for Ghanaian employees who had been abused by their employers.
The TUC in a statement described the act as dehumanizing and ordered the Managing Director of the company, William Moss, to produce the supervisor who is said to have fled the country for fear of being prosecuted.
The chaining and restriction of the movement of Comrade Sanou is not only a breach of his fundamental right to movement but goes to the core of his basic right to humane and dignified treatment, as guaranteed by the Ghana Constitution
For an employer to have the temerity in today's Ghana to chain a Ghanaian worker for any reason whatsoever is unconscionable and we totally and outrightly condemn it. We cannot countenance such dehumanizing conduct in the world of work, the TUC said.
-citifmonline
10.04.2016 LISTEN
The defeated contestant in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Ablekuma West Constituency parliamentary primary, Robert Kwesi Nicol, has pledged his support for the incumbent, Madam Ursula Owusu-Ekuful who emerged winner in the primary on Saturday.
Madam Ursula Owusu beat Mr. Kwesi Nicol, to emerge victorious polling 554 votes as against her challenger's 317 votes.
The third contender, one Theophilus Tetteh, pulled out of the race at the last hour because according to him, he still had issues with the voter's register. He has since vowed to contest the seat as an independent candidate.
The Ablekuma West NPP primary was delayed for nearly nine months following disagreements over the constituency's voters' register. On the day of voting there were also misunderstandings over the use of two different albums.
13 NPP executives from the constituency resigned following the disagreements and accused the NEC of disrespecting the constituency's executives and running the elections to favour the incumbent MP, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful.
According to them, 400 delegates also boycotted the elections.
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But the defeated Robert Kwesi Nicol, who campaigned on unification called for calm and urged all those disgruntled to come together and support the campaign to ensure victory for both the parliamentary and the presidential candidate.
Mr. Nicol, unusually accepted the results and conceded defeat even before counting was over.
Addressing the media, he said, The results have shown that Honourable Ursula has been declared the winner and I am the loser so I am going to support her 100 percent.
He urged party members to put the dispute over the albums behind them and work towards securing total victory in the November polls.
Whether one album or two albums we are all NPP members so I think it is important that we should merge and look at the way forward to help the party win power in 2016.
-citifmonline
The National Union of Ghana Students is accusing the District Chief Executive of Navrongo, Stanislav Kadigni of meddling in its elections to choose representatives for the All Africa Students Union.
Leadership of Student Unions across the country as mandated by their constitution, are to meet every four years to elect representatives for the continental students body the All Africa Students Union.
National President of the Graduate Students Association, Raymond Ayilu told Joy News the DCE is to blame for some confusion that occurred during the election process.
Narrating what happened at a meeting to present nominees at the University of Development Studies campus, Ayilu said the DCE had influenced the vetting committee of the student body to disqualify a candidate who was not his favourite.
Agitations started and this caused a lot of confusion and the police had to come in and disperse all the students including the Dean of Students of UDS.
He said the DCE had no right to be at the meeting insisted that it continued and that he had come to ensure that a directive given to him is implemented to the letter.
So the students questioned his presence at the venue because this was a student programme and so there was no need for the DCE to be at the premises trying to influence the activities of the students, Raymond said.
According to him, the DCE insisted that the elections continue to make sure his preferred candidate was elected.
He said the student body wondered why the DCE and other persons have taken sides during student election and are perpetuating violence and chaos.
Majority of the students have left the UDS campus and are returning to their various schools.
One student was reportedly arrested on Saturday during the disturbances but has since been released.
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business SC dismisses PIL against Reliance Jio's 4G licence The Supreme Court (SC) today dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) filed against Reliance Jio, the to-be-launched telecom service owned by Reliance Industries.
April 10, 2016
Kerry's "Please Make Assad Go" Begging Rounds Look Utterly Silly
Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's top adviser on international affairs, said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had asked "Iran to help so that Bashar Assad leaves. "We should ask them: "What does this have to do with you? Shouldn't the Syrian people decide?'" "From Iran's point of view Bashar Assad and his government should remain as a legal government and legal president until the end of his term. And Bashar Assad shall be able to take part in a presidential election as any Syrian citizen. And their precondition that Bashar Assad should go is a red line for us."
Jerusalem Post
I have wondered for quite a while why Kerry is running from door to door with this childish insistence that Bashar al-Assad has to leave as President of Syria.
Let's assume that Assad leaves tomorrow and is replaced with some other intelligent Syrian nationalist. Someone who, like Bashar al-Assad, has majority support of the Syrian people to continue the current course.
What would change?
Yes, Bashar Assad has some symbolic character for the Syrians fighting for their state. But a good inner-Syrian propaganda campaign could easily project a like picture onto a new face. The strategic interests and the policies involved in Syria would not change at all.
After the U.S. supported "rebels" broke the ceasefire by attacking government position in south of Aleppo and in Latakia the Syrian army is preparing for a big offensive. The aim is to free all of Aleppo governate from the "rebel" al-Qaeda menace. Changing the Syrian head of state would not change these military plans. They have, like national interests, their own logic.
Does Kerry understand how silly he looks when he makes these 'Please make Bashar al Assad go' rounds?
Posted by b on April 10, 2016 at 13:40 UTC | Permalink
Comments
HOUSTON Pipeline giant the Williams Cos. has sued its potential acquirer Energy Transfer over a private equity offering, the company announced Wednesday.
The suit argues that Dallas Energy Transfer Equity violated the terms of the $33 billion merger the two companies signed last September by giving its shareholders preferential treatment. Williams is asking the company to unwind the offering.
The suit is the latest crack in a marriage that has been strained by low oil prices. When the deal was signed in September, midstream companies had easier access to capital markets. Since then, both credit and equity markets have tightened, and some investors have grown concerned that stitching together the pipeline networks of Williams and Energy Transfer may not be worth the mountain of debt it would require to consummate the deal.
In public statements, both Energy Transfer and Williams have said they support the merger, which would create the largest midstream company in the nation by some measures.
But the deal has been complicated by a $6 billion payment Energy Transfer agreed to pay Williams shareholders, which has grown increasingly burdensome as oil prices remain low. And privately, former Energy Transfer CFO Jamie Welch who designed the deal to put the two companies together was said to have later argued against the combination, according to a report by the New York Times. Welch was unexpectedly dismissed last month and later sued Energy Transfer.
On March 23, Energy Transfer issued a regulatory filing that revealed it no longer saw a large benefit from the merger. The company told investors it expected to see about $170 million in additional earnings from the combination, materially less than the $2 billion in anticipated boost it had expected by 2020 when it inked the deal.
Still, in the statement announcing the lawsuit, Williams said it remains committed to the deal, though this time with a rider attached.
Williams remains committed to working with [Energy Transfer] to ensure the financial strength of the combined company, provided that all ETE and Williams investors are treated fairly and equitably, the company wrote.
The merger between the two companies is expected to close in the second quarter of 2016.
Diego I. Carrera, 19, of Midland was charged April 1 with manufacturing/delivering a controlled substance under 200 grams.
Addison D. Harguess, 29, of Midland was charged April 1 with burglary of a habitation with intent to commit another felony.
Roland Howell Jr., 35, of Midland was charged April 1 with forgery of a financial instrument.
Aliqua A. Schoclet, 26, of Midland was charged April 1 with aggravated assault of date/family/house member.
Brennan S. Manes, 23, of Midland was charged April 2 with possession of a controlled substance under 1 gram.
Becky Rios, 22, of Midland was charged April 2 with assault of a public servant.
Sarah F. Williams, 26, of Midland was charged April 2 with assault of a public servant.
Bay T. Wilson, 19, of Midland was charged April 2 with tampering with/fabricating physical evidence and possession of a controlled substance under 1 gram.
Cameron D. Bzdon, 22, of Midland was charged April 3 with evading arrest/detention with a previous conviction.
Anthony D. Masters, 41, of Midland was charged April 3 with assault of family/house member impeding breath.
Magali Villa, 37, of Midland was charged April 3 with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Matthew Forrest, 24, of Midland was charged April 4 with possession of a controlled substance under one gram.
Marissa Giron, 38, of Midland was charged April 4 with possession of a controlled substance under four grams and possession of a controlled substance under one gram.
Christopher Madrid, 22, of Midland was charged April 4 with sexual assault of a child.
Xavier Marquez, 19, of Midland was charged April 4 with unauthorized use of a vehicle.
Justin Rodriguez, 20, of Midland was charged April 4 with unauthorized use of a vehicle.
Daniel C. Cobb, 25, of Midland was charged April 5 with stalking.
Ronny A. Parrish, 48, of Midland was charged April 5 with possession of a controlled substance under 1 gram.
Randy D. Ulrich, 40, of McCamey was charged April 5 with unauthorized use of a vehicle.
Bobby L. Valencia, 47, of Midland was charged April 5 with violation of a protective order.
Willie E. Dewitt, 54, of Midland was charged April 6 with possession of a controlled substance under 1 gram.
Brandon M. Ringo, 22, of Midland was charged April 6 with assaulting a public servant.
Robert Thomas Jr., 25, of Midland was charged April 6 with possession of marijuana less than five pounds.
Lim J. Walton, 31, of Midland was charged April 6 with possession of marijuana less than five pounds.
Luis M. Rodriguez, 22, of Midland was charged April 7 with theft under $20,000.
Source: Midland County Sheriffs Office
Years from now we can look back and decide whether the Educate Midland process has been successful.
There will be particular data points we will go through, maybe an examination of ratings or a subjective measuring stick such as student or teacher morale.
How will we know if the community has the necessary culture of support? The expectation is that we will know it when we see it -- just like we know now we have great strides to make.
We know a majority of Midland ISD schools ranked below average, according to Greatschools.org. We realize 10 schools were designated IR, or improvement required, by the Texas Education Agency. We have seen Education Resource Group drop MISD from the 47th percentile in 2007 (of 200 schools) to the zero percentile in 2015 in its District Performance Index.
During Educate Midlands second town-hall meeting on Thursday night, a question was asked about how our community arrived in its current state of academic ineffectiveness.
That is when Superintendent Ryder Warren took the microphone to address those at First Presbyterian Church and then fell on the sword.
Two mistakes
He told the packed FPC meeting hall audience that he had made two mistakes -- two of the biggest mistakes of his career -- after arriving in Midland during the 2010-11 school year. The first was making normal evaluations during that first year and not making changes at the time.
That 2010-11 school year set the stage for us academically for the last five to six years, Warren said.
The second mistake, according to Warren, followed a turbulent session of the Texas Legislature when billions were cut from public education. Those cuts forced Midland ISD to cut $9 million from its operating budget. At the same time, he said, the state introduced new curriculum standards for teachers to learn and the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) was introduced.
Warren went into the budget season in the spring and summer of 2011, weighing the need to call a tax-rate election to make up for 200 staff members the district was set to lose going into the 2011-12 school year. The number of kids at Midland ISD was increasing, elementary schools were busting at the seams and a bond referendum to build three new elementary schools was certain for 2012. Warren also knew enough about Midland and its recent history to know a tax-rate election could do a lot of damage to future plans. He opted to not refill positions.
We stretched our teachers to the absolute limits (in terms of class sizes), Warren told those in attendance. I dont think we recovered from that.
Midland once followed a plan
Community impact isnt about pitching school bonds or tax-rate elections, and Warren said after the town-hall that his intention wasnt to link to the two. He referenced a list of school districts that was mentioned during the town-hall presentation and said these schools already had community support bases in place. They already have that culture in their communities that pays attention to the students and schools, he said. Those districts support teachers and staff and dont have bond campaigns but have schedules.
It is a culture of support, he said. The thing that irritates me and the thing that gives me hope is we had that in Midland.
Warren was referencing a time when the district was created and the plan that was followed. Midlanders actions backed Warrens comments as they approved 12 election items from 1947-1959, another seven from 1964-74 and eight more from 1980-91. But he said it wasnt just about improving facilities, but that Midland ISD did want to lose a teacher because someone else paid more .
Midland ISD is coming off a period when its teacher turnover was as much as 24 percent to 25 percent (12 percent to 15 percent is the state average), Warren said. Combine that with many new teachers having alternative certifications -- meaning their degree was in something other than education -- and the average teacher was not only more inexperienced but needed extra attention in his or her new career.
Midland is so community-minded that I have been surprised more people have taken the position that it is an MISD-only problem, not just a community problem that needs to be addressed, said Rick Davis, MISDs board president. One of the aspects of that and one of the benefits, too, is when people study the challenges we have here in Midland -- some of which are statewide and nationwide and some are unique to Midland and challenges we face here -- is that I think they will say I want us to do more.
A district moves forward
The mission of Educate Midland is to strengthen Midlands public education system so that every student is prepared to succeed in school, in the workforce and in life. There is no assumption of bond issues or tax- rate increases.
Davis sees many potential benefits that could come out of the collective impact process, including parental engagement and the appreciation of the importance of education.
Educate Midlands leadership committee includes 35 to 40 members. Some of those members represent organizations, student support groups and churches ready to step in and support the districts students, teachers and schools. Educate Midland eventually will organize the effort and coordinate those groups.
I want us to do more, Davis said. I want us to do more in volunteering. I want us to do more in support. I want us to do more in terms of our business community. I want us to do more in how we can financially support or in terms of private donations or tax dollars.
In the mean time, the school board will deal with MISDs Chapter 4A status. At a school board meeting in March, Warren presented the board with a scenario of a $47 million recapture payment and budget estimates that involve $10 million to $17 million in cuts.
The more you became familiar with the challenges and realities of the student today, you realize you cant use yesterdays solutions to address todays challenges, you have to be innovative and sometimes that costs money, Davis said.
At a time we are facing almost 25 percent of our local tax dollars going to Austin, think of all the good they could be doing here; it is just criminal.
Warrens comment has really been the only time in the town-hall process that looks back at how the community got in this situation. As ERG data and Texas Education Agency data show, the slide started during the time of Warrens predecessor. In 2009, MISD, as a district, and four of its campuses were rated academically unacceptable. And to make matters worse, the communitys relationship with its school district was strained.
Davis said after Thursdays meeting that had a tax-rate election been proposed in 2011, I am not sure the community would have gotten on board with us.
Years later, the community is more engaged. Some would say maybe not where we should be, but certainly better than where this community was when Warren made the second of his alleged two biggest mistakes. Will collective impact and Educate Midland lead the community to a culture of support for its district?
I think, however, there is a real chance by everyones own in-depth study of the issues and challenges that they will come to the conclusion that we need to do more with more time, more money, more everything to make a difference, Davis said.
Based on the recent history of education meetings in the community, Educate Midland officials had a reason to worry that attendance would be sparse at their meetings rolling out an education improvement initiative.
After two town-halls in front of an estimated 550 curious Midlanders, they can put those worries to rest. Educate Midland has the attention of many in the community who wanted to learn more about collective impact and how it might change educational outcomes in Midland ISD.
This week town-halls are scheduled for Tuesday at the Hispanic Cultural Center of Midland (the presentation will be in Spanish) and Thursday at Greater Ideal Family Life Center. These likely will be the truest barometers of how much the entire community is connecting with the Educate Midland initiative, which is still in its early stages.
The town-halls on the east and southeast sides of Midland will target minority residents. Traditionally it has been those areas of Midland that havent played a part in the process -- whether at the ballot box or public meetings. At recent meetings regarding schools on the citys south side, attendance averaged fewer than two people per school, district officials said.
Educate Midland officials were hopeful the buzz created by the first two meetings -- albeit in front of predominantly white crowds -- will carry over to week 2.
Another chance to connect with teachers
If there was one group that made its presence felt during week 1, it was the teachers. While Educate Midland officials expected some participation, question after question came from those interested in how the process would impact teachers and how teachers would play a role in the initiative.
Im not surprised (teachers made the town-halls), said Mark Palmer, an Educate Midland board member and former classroom teacher. It has been far more than I would have expected but that is indicative of their hope to improve academic performance of the students at MISD.
Palmer said during the second meeting that Educate Midland will make teacher involvement an integral part moving forward. Specific plans will be announced after the end of the town-halls and following discussions with Educate Texas and MISD leadership, but Palmer emphasized that the collaboration is needed because he wants to make sure the process is mindful of our partner.
The Reporter-Telegram talked with current and former teachers and PTA leadership. For the most part, they were complimentary of the process. Gretchen Bakke, a teacher with the district for 27 years and product of Midland schools, said having community support is exciting for teachers because residents appear to be behind the districts 1,600 teachers but negative reaction often arises when test scores and ratings are the subject of the conversation.
Jenny Langford with the Midland Council of PTAs, said the initiative will motivate those in education and those supporting educator.
Anytime we can get our community involved in education, you will see a positive impact, Langford said.
Time to walk the walk
Educate Midland officials have said during these town-halls that they realize theres a need to build trust with the entire community.
One such person is Diana Upchurch, a former full-time teacher. Her husband, daughter and son-in-law are all MISD educators. She said the current state of MISD scares her, and the environment for teachers has her concerned.
Teacher morale in Midland is at an all-time low, Upchurch said. I dont blame it on one person or any one thing.
Upchurch expressed frustration with central office that she said has added to the teachers burden and suggested that MISD leaders follow an Outback method -- a reference to the restaurant, where she said a patrons tea glass will be filled by anyone, not just the server responsible for the table.
Central office has to be willing to work in the trenches with us, Upchurch said. They are not doing that.
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This weeks meetings
Tuesday
(presentation will be in Spanish only)
6-7:30 p.m.
Hispanic Cultural Center of Midland
1311 E. Wadley Ave.
(Inside Hogan Park)
Thursday
6-7:30 p.m.
Greater Ideal Family Life Center
301 S. Tyler St.
What is collective impact?
Collective impact is a framework to tackle deeply entrenched and complex social problems. It is an innovative and structured approach to making collaboration work across government, business, philanthropy, non-profit organizations and citizens to achieve significant and lasting social change.
Source: www.collaborationforimpact.com
Collective impact - five elements
1. All participants have a common agenda for change, including a shared understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving it through agreed-upon actions.
2. Collecting data and measuring results consistently across all the participants ensures shared measurement for alignment and accountability.
3. Create a plan of action that outlines and coordinates mutually reinforcing activities for each participant.
4. Open and continuous communication is needed across the many players to build trust, assure mutual objectives and create common motivation.
5. A backbone organization(s) with staff and specific set of skills to serve the entire initiative and coordinate participating organizations and agencies.
Source: www.collaborationforimpact.com
What is Educate Texas?
Educate Texas, a public-private initiative of Communities Foundation of Texas, is an innovative alliance of public and private groups that share a common goal: strengthening the public education system so that every Texas student is prepared for success in school, in the workforce, and in life.
Source: www.edtx.org
What is Educate Midland?
A collaboration of Midland ISD and Educate Texas with the goal of strengthening Midlands public education system so that every student is prepared to succeed in school, in the workforce, and in life.
Source: www.educatemidland.org
Educate Midland Board members
Susan Spratlen, Pioneer Natural Resources
Laura Roman, community representative
Mark Palmer, Abell-Hanger Foundation
Ronnie Scott, Henry Foundation
Grant Billingsley, Scharbauer Foundation
It's a bittersweet situation for rapper DMX who was allegedly robbed of his valuable watch from inside his hotel room by a female suspect. Though the woman was later found by police and the stolen watch recovered, the woman has now accused DMX of sexual assault.
Rapper DMX, real name Earl Simmons, is at the center of a developing sexual assault charge after reportedly inviting an unidentified woman and some other friends to his hotel room in Orange, California according to The Boombox. Simmons reportedly met the woman at a Los Angeles bar and ultimately ended up leaving with the woman to return to his hotel at Ayres Hotel and Suites on Bristol Street.
After some time spent in the room with Simmons and friends, the woman reportedly disappeared -- but not alone. A $30,000 watch that belonged to the "Party Up" rapper also went missing at the time when the woman was no where to be found.
As reported by Boombox, the Costa Mesa police were called and a search was conducted for the missing woman. Though the police were successful in their search and found the missing woman and watch, the investigation took a different turn when the woman gave her account of what happened.
The woman who was found with Simmons' watch was later identified as a 25-year-old Hawthorne, California resident by the LA Times. She told police that Simmons had sexually assaulted her before they arrived. According to the report, police are still investigating her claims and have not arrested the 45-year-old rapper over the allegations, although the woman was arrested on grand theft charges. She has since posted bail.
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Someone should sue the President for ...
Two high school girls from Miami who went missing during a weekend trip with their school to Kissimmee and were later found have been reunited with their families.
Brocha Katz and Rivka Moshe were reported missing Saturday at approximately 8 p.m. from the Caribe Cove Resort located at 9000 Treasure Trove Lane in Kissimmee.
The two 16-year-old girls were found in a heavily wooded area, next their resort. The Osceola County Sheriffs Office searched for the missing teens on the ground and in the air.
And it wasnt just local law enforcement looking for them.
I saw at least hundreds of volunteers come out, said Moshe Drebin a volunteer from Miami.
People part of the Jewish community in South Florida traveled all the way over here to help in these search efforts-- be it through prayer or by passing out flyers.
When anyone in the Jewish community gets affected in a negative or even a positive way, we all come together, Drebin added.
Brocha Katz and Rivkah Moshe were staying at The Caribe Cove Resort for a retreat. The girls were not carrying their cell phones because it was a religious function, when it is believed that they wandered into the woods and got lost.
The rescue efforts took hours because the two girls were stuck in a wooded area. Search and rescue workers had to cut down on brush and make their way through a forested and swamp-like land.
Rabbi Yosef Konikov the director of Chabad of South Orlando was there when the girls were found.
As soon as they were told that it was them they came out cheering and there were people dancing. It was beautiful to see the unity and the concern from people who never met these people, Rabbi Konikov said.
The girls were checked out by paramedics and taken to the hospital as a precaution. Were told they appear to be in good health and only sustained minor scratches.
A Brevard County woman has taken in four horses, including a mother and her 1-month-old baby, which were rescued from an unlicensed animal facility in North Carolina.
Suzanna Norris drove to North Carolina to rescue the horses, among almost 700 animals rescued from the facility. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said it was one of the largest rescues in the agency's history.
I know that they need a place like this. We take care of them, we build them back up, we train them, they find new homes, said Norris, founder of Hidden Acres Rescue for Thoroughbreds in Cocoa, which takes in off-the-track thoroughbreds.
Her passion for animals is what led her to take in the horses from North Carolina.
The facility just got out of hand, and the horses were not getting the care that they need," Norris said. "They were all underweight, they hadnt been cared for, their feet hadnt been done.
Ethel, Lucy Maddie and her 1-month-old baby were once living at a no-kill animal facility in Raeford, North Carolina. The ASPCA said almost 700 animals were rescued at the unlicensed facility. Some of the animals had untreated injuries. The ASPCA took the animals from the shelter in January.
Suzanna hopes with a lot of care, the horses will regain trust in people.
I wake up, and I am just blessed every single day, said Norris.
For more information about Norris' organization, go to www.hartforhorses.org.
Four horses, including a mom with a 1-month-old baby, have been taken in by Suzanna Norris, founder of Hidden Acres Rescue for Thoroughbreds in Cocoa.
Image source: www.401kcalculator.org.
You can collect Social Security benefits as early as age 62, and you're free to work after your benefits start. However, depending on your age and income, working after you file for Social Security can reduce your monthly checks. Here's what you need to know about the Social Security earnings tests, and what it means to you in the long run.
Three categories of Social Security recipients
For the purposes of determining how working affects Social Security benefits, there are three distinct categories of beneficiaries.
Social Security recipients over 62 who will not reach full retirement age during the current calendar year. Social Security recipients who haven't reached full retirement age, but will during the year. Social Security recipients who are over full retirement age.
As you might imagine, these are listed in order from the most restrictive rules to least. In fact, Social Security recipients who are over full retirement age don't have to worry they can work all they want without any benefit reductions whatsoever. The other two groups are subject to the Social Security earnings test to determine their benefit reduction, if any.
Full retirement age (also referred to as "normal retirement age") is 66 years old for workers born between 1943 and 1954 so this includes people reaching full retirement age now. For those born after 1954, full retirement age increases by two months per year until it reaches 67 for those born in 1960 or later.
The Social Security earnings test
For Social Security recipients who will reach full retirement age after 2016, the first $15,720 in earnings are exempt. Above this amount, benefits will be reduced by $1 for every $2 in excess earnings.
As an example, let's say that you're 63, and you earn $30,000 this year. Under the earnings test, only $14,280 will be considered when determining your benefit reduction, and your annual Social Security benefit will be reduced by half of this amount, or $7,140.
For those who will reach full retirement age during 2016, the exempt amount is much higher-$41,880, and only earnings in the months prior to the month of your birthday will be considered. Above this amount, your benefits are reduced by $1 for every $3 in earnings.
Let's say that you currently collect Social Security, and that you'll reach full retirement age in August. We'll also say that you have a job with a $60,000 annual salary ($5,000 per month). Even though your salary is greater than the exempt amount, the earnings test only considers the first seven months of the year, since you'll attain full retirement age in August. This means that $35,000 are considered for benefit reduction purposes, which puts you below the threshold. Therefore, your Social Security benefit for 2016 will not be reduced.
Keep in mind that these thresholds apply for 2016. The exempt amounts are adjusted annually to keep up with the national average wage index, and will likely rise going forward. Also, there has been some talk among politicians about getting rid of the earnings test in order to encourage seniors to remain in the workforce until full retirement age.
It's not really a reduction
Finally, it's important to mention that this isn't really a "reduction" at all. Rather, your benefits are simply withheld. Once you reach your full retirement age, you'll receive credit for any benefit reduction, and your retirement benefits will be permanently increased from that time on.
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Before the O.J. Simpson trial, viewers all over the country were glued to another real-life TV stunner: detailed allegations by law professor Anita Hill that she had been sexually harassed by Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.
It was all there on live television lurid, raw and visceral. During the Thomas confirmation hearings, Hill testified that the nominee made unwanted advances toward her complete with mentions of pubic hair, oral sex and porn when she worked for him at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Thomas countered with his own impassioned statements, describing the televised proceedings as a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks.
Though these historic telecasts happened nearly 25 years ago, I remember them quite well.
Reading an old column of mine made the memory even clearer, as did watching a screener of HBOs engaging and powerful film, Confirmation, starring Kerry Washington (Scandal) as Hill and Wendell Pierce (Treme) as Thomas.
The movie debuts at 7 p.m. Saturday on HBO.
When the real controversy dominated the news in October 1991, I took a quick trip around the Alamo City to stores and restaurants, where TVs blared the hearings to get a feel for local reaction.
Some supported Thomas, calling Hill a phony and worse. Others acted bored, indicating that men made passes at women all the time, so, as one woman put it, why all the fuss?
One young mother became emotional, saying she, too, was a victim of sexual harassment; she applauded Hill for her courage.
The HBO film that revisits the scandal is bound to stir up strong feelings all over again. It couldnt be timelier. Just as FXs The People v. O.J. Simpson shone a light on an issue that remains relevant today racism within law enforcement Confirmations Senate battles over the confirmation of Thomas mirror some of the political tug-of-war regarding President Obamas choice for the vacant seat of recently deceased Justice Antonin Scalia.
After much bickering and ugliness, the hearings ended in a narrow victory 52 to 48 votes for Thomas. But what also emerged was a much more enlightened view and discussion of sexual harassment.
Washington, who not only plays Hill but is an executive producer of the movie, said her hope is that the film will continue the conversation.
We all had to sit through a sexual harassment orientation before we started filming the movie, Washington told TV critics at an HBO session, which was a little bit surreal, because (such an orientation) is based a lot on the story we were about to tell. And yet some of the issues are still rearing their head in terms of gender and in terms of race and how we understand those things.
Pierce, her co-star, agreed that Confirmation goes way beyond just a he said, she said tale. It also encourages all of us to ask, What do we consider important?
So people will come away with the idea of, I cant act without some sort of awareness of how Im treating other people.
Screenwriter Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich) said she also wanted to drive home the fact that the hearings were a very painful and traumatic experience for almost everyone involved.
The actors contributed greatly, delivering nuanced performances that make us feel their characters pain.
Washington, who had met Hill, said she is very private. I felt that that was something that she and I shared, that idea of the circumstances of your life thrust into the public eye, when its not necessarily your choice.
She said the role terrified her at first: You know, portraying somebody whos real is a different kind of responsibility, especially when theyre alive.
Greg Kinnear also gives us an interesting take on Joe Biden, whom he plays as conflicted throughout. In an effort to appease Thomas Republican backers and keep them from smearing Hill in increasingly abhorrent ways Biden refuses to call a witness (played by Jennifer Hudson) who would back up Hills claims. That virtually handed the confirmation to Thomas.
Pierce may have had the biggest challenge: finding Thomas humanity amid the furor.
I had to check my own prejudice about who I thought he was, he said. As I studied his life, I realized how much we had in common, and I realized that the only way that I was going to be able to play the man was to be authentic and true to his humanity and his experience.
I didnt think of him as a political figure. I thought of him as a man about to lose the greatest opportunity he ever had.
Jeanne Jakles column appears Wednesdays and Sundays in mySA, and she writes online at mySA.com/Jakle. Email her at jjakle@express-news.net.
SAN ANTONIO - A woman suffered severe leg injuries after she was struck by a vehicle Sunday morning around 2 a.m. on the near North Side at at the intersection of McCullough Avenue and Cypress Street.
According to San Antonio police at the scene, a fight in a nearby bar escalated when those involved move the fight out into the streets.
SAN ANTONIO-- San Antonio police say a driver lost control of their truck while traveling through the intersection of Roosevelt and Steves avenues about 3:15 a.m. Sunday, and slammed into the storefront of an auto repair business.
Police at the scene say the truck jumped curb when the driver lost control and rammed into Rafas Tire & Muffler Service, 1223 Roosevelt Ave., causing major damage to the business.
The encryption debate has dominated the national discourse in recent months, but there has been near silence from the presidential candidates on the issue. If the voting public is to make an informed decision come November, this must change.
When pressed, various candidates appear to have thrown their support behind the FBI in the recent litigation with Apple over the encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the perpetrators of the San Bernardino terror attack. Republican hopeful John Kasich, for one, called encryption a big problem, and his rival Donald Trump even went so so far as to call for a boycott of Apple products until such time as Apple gives cellphone info to authorities But none has presented a comprehensive policy position on the use of encryption.
Let us put the Apple-FBI battle in perspective. The government wanted the four-digit code to the phone. Most of us would not give the four-digit code of our phone to our best friends, but the government wanted permission to have the four-digit code to all phones. Would any candidate volunteer his four-digit code to his rivals?
Other candidates have resorted to equivocation. Bloomberg reported in early March that Democratic presidential hopeful Hilary Clinton lamented that the encryption issue, which allegedly pits the privacy of data against prevent(ing) crimes and terrorism, placed her squarely in the middle of the worst dilemma ever. Clinton explained that its a problem weve got to come up with some way to solve, punting the issue for a future day.
Although de rigueur on the campaign trail, such extemporaneous policy comments and hazy nonanswers are unacceptable. Much as we, the voters, would never elect a candidate without knowing his or her views on tax policy or foreign affairs, and all the intricacies they entail, we should hold our politicians to the same standard for an issue so fundamental as privacy. This is particularly true for smartphones devices that play a tremendously important role in our daily lives. They are with us when we wake up. They join us at the office and in meetings. They go on family holidays then rest on our nightstands when we go to bed. These devices capture the moments of our life. Simply put, the risks of voting without being fully informed are too great to accept.
We stand at a watershed moment in history. As we speak, politicians from both parties are proposing both federal and state legislation designed to restrict the use of or even ban certain types of encryption. The failure to stop such rash legislation will have long-term implications from which we as a society cannot come back. Either we go forward secure in the knowledge that our right to privacy will endure in the digital age, or we allow the high, wrapped-in-the-flag rhetoric of terrorism and security to eviscerate our historical prerogatives. And in this critical sense, the encryption debate is not a hard question. It is an easy question with a politically unpalatable answer.
The politicians we elect this November will set the tone for this debate for years to come. For that reason, we deserve considered, well-informed policy positions now. The voting public has the right to know whether those seeking high office recognize that encryption is, at its core, good, and that to weaken encryption in just one instance is to weaken it in all.
We have a right to know whether our next president will defend our rights as a matter of principle, and not kowtow to the political expediency of the moment. And most important, we have a right to have this conversation today not Nov. 9, the day after Election Day.
Victor Cocchia is CEO and co-founder of Vysk Communications, a manufacturer of mobile security communications headquartered in San Antonio.
On April 16, 2008, my husband, Ray, suffered a massive stroke while at work in the district attorneys office. At the time, I did not recognize the signs of a potential problem, but looking back, the signs were there.
Two weeks prior to his stroke, we were in Washington, D.C,. for my 50th high school class reunion. My mind was focused on the trip, visiting with friends and doing the things one does during a class reunion.
Ray seemed to be having a nice time. He enjoyed our private tour of the White House, particularly the Oval Office and the now famous Lewinski closet! Former Express-News Editor Bob Rivard made it possible for us to have a private tour of the Newseum, which was set to open in late April. That was the highlight of my trip, and Ray enjoyed it thoroughly as well. I love history, but Rays love for history far surpassed anyone else Ive ever known. He relished the trip to the Newseum, too.
But the signs I didnt recognize included Ray being very quiet and not as outgoing as usual. He commented several times that he had a headache several times during the trip that was a major sign as Ray had never in our 30 years of marriage spoken of having a headache. He appeared to tire more easily, he shuffled his feet occasionally as he was walking, and I recall several times when he seemed unable to find the word he was looking for. He seemed to need more sleep than usual.
And I do not have one picture of him smiling during that entire week. That was totally out of character.
Looking back, I recall his dogged determination to visit Arlington National Cemetery and the National World War II Memorial for, as he put it, one last time.
While there, we used a limousine service for transportation, but for this visit to Arlington, he rented a car because he wanted to do it his way, in his time. He literally spent hours walking through Arlington, quietly, reverently. I recall that as we were leaving, he stopped the car, just gazed over the hillside and quietly said, Thank you. He didnt say another word on the way back to the hotel.
I noticed Ray appeared weak, but otherwise our trip home was uneventful. I recall carrying both our carry-on bags because it appeared difficult for him to manage his. Normally, Ray would have carried both and told me to hurry up as we went to the gate. This time, he was very slow, almost as though he was having to force himself to take each step.
All these things should have screamed out to me that something was wrong. I should have recognized them and gotten him to a hospital immediately. It is quite likely that the hemorrhagic bleed in his brain had already begun. Had we recognized it and gotten him medical treatment when the symptoms first appeared, the damage could have been negated to a higher degree.
I ask each of you to pay close attention to anything unusual and take immediate action. Learn the signs: weakness or tingling on one side, trouble walking, trouble speaking or understanding, severe headache with no known cause, numbness, vision problems and dizziness.
None of these symptoms should be ignored.
Suzanne Hildebrand lives in San Antonio.
Educational Testing Services, the New Jersey-based company that has the multimillion-dollar contract to administer the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, has some explaining to do.
Students in school districts across the state, including some in San Antonio, who were taking the STAAR electronically encountered serious problems as the high-stakes testing season got underway.
ETS is in its first year of a $280 million contract it was awarded after the state chose not to continue with Pearson Education, the states testing vendor for the past 30 years, but it is not new to the student-assessment arena.
Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath said he will not accept the transition to a new testing vendor as an excuse for the problems school districts encountered. We urge proper steps be taken to ensure that similar problems do not reoccur and ETS give a public accounting of what went wrong.
The computer glitches included inability to log in or submit answers, and uncertainty about whether answers were saved. Those issues should have been resolved long before testing day. TEA is not going to make the students who experienced problems on test day retake their exams, rightly so.
Computer errors are not unusual; we all encounter them from time to time. They become significant, however, when they happen to a public school students on the test they have been preparing for all year.
High-stakes testing already promotes enough anxiety for students, parents, teachers and school administrators without adding the drama of computer problems to the mix.
Posted on 04/10/2016, 10:00 am, by mySteinbach
Keystone Agricultural Producers asked Manitobas political parties today to prioritize investment in agricultural innovation in order to build on what existing ag tech companies have done in the province.
There has been a trend of declining investment in this area and this needs to be reversed, said KAP president Dan Mazier at an event attended by community leaders, researchers, members of Manitobas technology industry and the media.
KAP further called on politicians to make Manitoba the Canadian centre for ag innovation.
Farmers are adopting technology at a record rate, creating the need for many more agricultural companies that can supply it. Someone can lead the way in creating a home for these companies and we believe it can be Manitoba.
Statistics show that every dollar invested in agricultural research returns about $10 worth of benefits to the economy. And on average, public agricultural research undertaken today will begin to noticeably influence agricultural productivity in as little as two years and its impact could be felt for as long as 30 years.
The benefit of investing in agricultural research extends beyond national boundaries, too. When innovative agricultural technology companies get their start in Manitoba, they can move on to grow their customer base around the world while keeping good jobs here at home.
Drones, satellites, GPS, farm data analysis these innovations are only the tip of the iceberg, said Mazier. We need companies here in Manitoban that can take new ideas and give us newer and better innovations.
Wade Barnes, co-founder and CEO of Farmers Edge, a global leader in precision agriculture and independent data management solutions based in Winnipeg, also has faith in Manitobas capacity to become an ag technology hub.
Hopefully Farmers Edge is a small part of a much larger technology ecosystem here in Manitoba, he said.
His company recently attracted millions of dollars in investment from the Silicon Valley, but said no when investors wanted the company to move down there.
We need to be here (in Manitoba) with real farmers, Barnes said. The agricultural expertise we have in this province is second to none. Manitoba farmers have the shortest window to harvest, so they are the masters of the trade.
Many customers have sought us out not just because were from Canada, but because were from Manitoba.
Mazier hopes the incoming government will recognize these advantages when it looks at support and funding for ag technology.
Success will be when we see a substantial increase in the number of researchers and research investment in Manitoba, when we attract sufficient capital investment into the province to support the commercialization and expansion of ag tech firms like Farmers Edge, and when we see technology adapted on Manitoba farms at a higher rate than anywhere else, he said.
Yves here. Below is the section of the Bill Clinton reaction to BlackLivesMatter protestors that Black discusses at length below.
Bizarrely, I came across it via a link claiming how effective Bill was. I have to think this cant have helped with the intended audience, black voters, and probably hurt hurt. But how much depends on whether BlackLivesMatter and/or other influential voices in the African-American community are effective in calling Bill out.
One key fact that Bill Black does not include in his analysis: the drop in the crime rate in the 1990s was due to getting lead out of gasoline.
By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Originally published at Huffington Post, with a postscript from New Economic Perspective
Remember several weeks ago when Hillary Clinton was complaining that Democrats did not consider her a progressive? Bernie Sanders big win in Wisconsin ended that tactic and propelled Paul Krugman and Hillary and Bill Clinton to race to the right, inadvertently proving Bernies point that they are not progressives on the key issues.
In the last week, Hillary and her surrogates have pivoted hard right and retreated to their long-held positions on the major issues. Indeed, in several cases they have gone even farther to the right than the policies they pushed over a decade ago even though those policies proved disastrous. They also inadvertently demonstrated the terrible policies that were produced by the Clintons vaunted pragmatism and compromising with the most extreme Republican demands. That was the story of Clintons infamous welfare reform a policy both Clintons championed. Tom Frank details in his new book entitled Listen, Liberal how the Clintons pragmatism and zeal to work with the worst elements of the Republican Party led to the welfare reform bill. Zach Carter has just written the article I was planning to write about that travesty. He entitled it Nothing Bill Clinton Said To Defend His Welfare Reform Is True. I encourage you to read it.
As a criminologist (I am also an adviser to Bernie on economics), I will begin my two-part series on Hillarys race to the right with Bill Clintons effort to defend his drug law policies and Hillarys denunciation of black drug users as super predators. The second column explains Krugmans race to the right on banking in his effort to support Hillarys hard pivot to right.
Bills defense of his policies that helped feed the mass incarceration of blacks and Latinos for drug offense came in the same April 7, 2016 campaign speech in Philadelphia that led to Zach Carter skewering his defense of welfare reform. Bills speech was strongly protested by Black Lives Matter members, which led to unscripted, angry attacks by Bill on some of the protesters and prompted his defense of his crime bill and Hillarys attack on superpredators.
Bill made four key points about crime in his attempted defense and attacks on the protesters. First he claimed that his 1993 crime bill led to a huge decrease in crime. The reality is that street crimes were declining before his bill and the trend continued after the bill passed. (Elite financial crimes were surging due to the Clintons championing of the three des deregulation, desupervision and de facto decriminalization of finance but the Clintons and the authors creating and spreading the myth of the black and Latino superpredators ignored them.)
Second, Bill claimed that the bad parts of his crime bill were caused by Republican demands. Tom Franks book shows how the Clintons pragmatism and promises to work with the hard right led to him crafting a bill that produced the mass incarceration of Americans. This problem was compounded by his sentencing provision that punished crack cocaine users 100 times more severely (by weight) than powder cocaine users. When the bill was drafted it seems likely that the drafters did not know that crack cocaine was used overwhelmingly by blacks and Latinos and powder cocaine overwhelmingly by whites. A wide range of people eagerly created what social scientists call a moral panic about crack cocaine even though its effects were the same of powder. Bills crime bill achieved bipartisan support, including Bernie.
What Bill did not discuss, but what Tom Franks book emphasizes, is that the immense racial disparity in sentencing and the lack of any basis for it given the chemical equivalency of crack and powder became clear within a year after passage of the act. By 1995, the U.S. Sentencing Commission had gathered the data, conducted the analysis, and done all the drafting to repeal the disparity and Bill and the Republican Congress promptly worked pragmatically and in a bipartisan manner to block the repeal of the racist sentencing disparity. After he left office, Bill repeatedly apologized for his Crime Act, but a few days ago in Philadelphia he reverted to praising his disastrous law. He is moving exceptionally hard right back to his natural instincts when he gets off script.
Third, Bill moved so far right that he resurrected a racist position Hillary had enunciated (and later repudiated). Hillary attacked blacks who used crack as super predators. That phrase was crafted as part of the effort to generate a moral panic in order to produce the mass incarceration of blacks. CNN reported on Hillarys use of the term.
They are often the kinds of kids that are called super predators, Clinton said in a 1996 speech, when crime was a major public concern, according to polls at the time. No conscience, no empathy, we can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.
Hillary was quoting phrases from three ultra-right authors that were Reagan officials. None of them was a criminologist, yet they claimed that overwhelmingly black super predators were growing at such epic rates that we should be so terrified by them that we would support a full scale war against black and Latino drug users. They did not simply coin the term super predator and stress that they were primarily black they called them feral. That is the word used for a once tame animal that reverts to a wild animal. Black crack users were demonized as subhuman wild animals whose ancestors had once been tame (as slaves) and who, as Hillary demanded, must be brought to heel like trained dogs.
None of this was true, but the racist lies succeeded in creating the moral panic that caused enormous damage to our Nation. Michelle Alexanders book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is an excellent treatment of the shameful result.
Hillary eventually (in 2016) recanted her adoption of the racist super predator phrase and meme. Bill is disinterring it now because he got flustered and angered by the Black Lives Matter protesters and reverted in an unscripted fit to what came reflexively.
Fourth, Bill attacked the Black Lives Matter protesters in a way that was unworthy of him. Indeed, his attack on them came directly from his bizarre effort to support Hillarys use of the term super predator months after she had repudiated that term. Bill invoked the same racist myths, using the same racist language that was employed over a decade ago even though they have been completely discredited by criminologists. CNNs report of his Philadelphia speech notes:
He also defended Hillary Clintons use of the phrase super predators. I dont know how you would characterize the gang leaders who got 13-year-old kids hopped up on crack, and sent them out in the streets to murder other African-American children, the former president said. Maybe you thought they were good citizens she didnt.
(Bill also seems to be channeling the interrogation scene from the movie LA Confidential Were you hopped up, Ray?)
Plainly, Black Lives Matter protesters never suggested that good citizens murder children. Bills claim that they did so shows how panicked he was by Bernies big win in Wisconsin. Bills story that gang leaders got 13-year old kids hopped up on crack, and sent them to murder other African-American children is a racist myth. Even the ultra-hard right authors that invented the term super predator and described black crack users as akin to animals abandoned the term and their claims over five years ago. Bill has gone far to the right of the ultra-right wing by disinterring these racist myths, claiming that they were and are accurate, and making the preposterous claim that Black Lives Matter protesters support those who murder black children.
Postscript
How badly did Bill do on crime in his Philadelphia speech? Ive just found a Wall Street Journal editorial that they have posted entitled In Defense of Bill Clinton. The WSJs editorial team praises the Clintons for telling the truth about the super predators, falsely asserts that the crime bill is what reduced crime, and applauds his claim that Black Lives Matter members seek to defend those who murder black children. Murdochs minions then instruct Democrats and Black Lives Matter agitators (another racist meme buried 30 years ago that the WSJ dug up for this editorial) on why they should be praising Bills disinterring the racist fiction of gang leaders who got 13-year-olds hopped up on crack and sent them out onto the street to murder other African-American children.
Progressives at the time were happy to go along with Mr. Clintons New Democratic policies when center-right positioning seemed essential to winning the White House. But now theyre too intimidated by Black Lives Matter to tell the truth.
***
The Black Lives Matter agitators should thank President Clinton, not excoriate him.
When Murdochs mouthpieces purport to tell the truth to blacks and progressives its a sure sign that they are lying.
Judge Denies Motions by Fossil Fuel Industry and Federal Government in Landmark Climate Change Case EcoWatch (Glenn F). This is a remarkable result. But even if the plaintiffs prevail, I doubt the verdict will survive an appeal.
Judge Tells Wildlife Agency to Protect Wolverines From Climate Change TakePart
This Low-Tech Trap For Killing Mosquito Eggs Is Brilliant Gizmodo (Chuck L)
High Schoolers Use Homemade Nuclear Fusion Reactor To Dominate Science Fairs Slashdot
Driverless bus in Greece has had no accidents in six months Boing Boing (resilc)
Thailand is getting close to becoming a military dictatorship Business Insider (furzy)
US soldiers burned their waste in the Mideast wars and now its killing them New York Post (furzy)
Mossack Fonseca
China?
Nuit DeBuit map (ballard)
Syraqistan
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Imperial Collapse Watch
Senators Slam NATO Free-Riders in Closed-Door Meeting With Secretary General Foreign Policy
2016
The End of Ordinary Politics Archdruid
We Have a Lot. We Can Get More. We Want It All Gaius Publius
Super PAC Backer Says Big Money Entitles Donors to Campaign Oversight Intercept (Dan K)
Capitalist Deserter Pfizer Just Got a Spanking Bill Greider, Nation
The wolves of Tel Aviv: Israels vast, amoral binary options scam exposed The Times of Israel
Investors, first catch your unicorn then hang on to it Financial Times (David L). Sequoia taking its book. And this is the same Michael Moritz who warned of subprime unicorns a mere six months ago.
Big Board Aims to Keep an Upstart at Bay, but Copy Its Technology Gretchen Morgenson, New York Times
Its the end of globalization as we know it Quartz
Class Warfare
Antidote du jour (martha r):
See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.
By William Lazonick, President, The Academic-Industry Research Network. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website
Now that new Treasury Department rules have effectively thwarted Pfizers attempt to evade its U.S. tax obligations by using its proposed merger with Allergan to do a tax inversion, its time policymakers turned their attention to a far more common and even more damaging corporate practice: stock buybacks. This mode of distributing corporate cash to shareholders helps pump up the pay of Pfizers senior executives, while, as President Obama said of the tax inversion, it sticks the rest of us with the tab.
Last October, in justifying the proposed merger that would effect the tax inversion, Pfizer CEO Ian C. Read
complained that the companys U.S. tax burden meant that his management team had to take on global competition with one hand tied behind our back. But, as research by the AIRnet has shown, Pfizer makes debilitating decisions that deplete its finances far more than taxes do. During Reads reign as CEO from 2011 through 2015, Pfizer paid out $44.7 billion in buybacks and $32.9 billion in dividends. Buybacks alone dwarfed the $16.0 billion Pfizer provisioned for U.S. income taxes over the same period.
Buybacks have clearly helped inflate the pay of Ian Read; in his five years as CEO he has raked in $76.8 million in direct compensation, of which 63% came from stock-based pay. Other senior Pfizer executives as well as stock-market traders who have been adept at timing their Pfizer stock sales have also gained from buybacks.
While its obvious that buybacks make executives and some other shareholders rich, how buybacks stick the rest of us with the tab may be far less evident. Pfizer boosts its profits by charging high drug prices. Yet from 2011 through 2015, Pfizer spent an equivalent of 71% of its profits on buybacks while also distributing 52% of its profits as dividends. By charging high drug prices to enrich shareholders, Pfizer increases the healthcare burden on Americas households who foot huge Medicare/Medicaid pharmaceutical bills as taxpayers, and face higher retail drug prices, insurance premiums, and co-payments as patients. Bringing stock buybacks by pharmaceutical companies under control is an obvious way of making healthcare more affordable.
A pharmaceutical company like Pfizer would not be able to put drugs on the market without the massive taxpayer-funded life-sciences research through the National Institutes of Health to the tune of $958 billion (in 2015 dollars) between 1938 and 2015. Financial aid from the public has also come to the pharmaceutical industry through such measures as the Orphan Drug Act of 1983, which birthed Pfizer money-makers Lipitor and Enbrel. Quite apart from the tax inversion that the Obama Administration has wisely thwarted, a company like Pfizer regularly wastes billions of dollars on buybacks that should be returned to taxpayers.
Buybacks will continue without any effective limits unless the SECs Reagan-era Rule 10b-18 is struck down. After the scrapping of its inversion plan, Pfizers press release quoted CEO Read as saying: As always, we remain committed to enhancing shareholder value. Unfortunately, enhancing shareholder value and the value a company creates through its actual work often bear little, if any, relation to one another. For example, not one product originated and developed in Pfizers own labs after 2005 has generated significant revenue for the company.
And between 2011 and 2015, as Reads Pfizer was reducing its workforce from almost 104,000 to around 79,000 worldwide (excluding employees from its recent acquisition of Hospira) and seeing its annual revenues shrink from $67.4 billion to $48.9 billion, Pfizer distributed as buybacks and dividends an amount equal to 124% of profits. The $77.6 billion that the company devoted to enhancing shareholder value was twice the amount spent on R&D during the period, raising the question of how many new drugs Pfizers labs will be capable of putting onto the market going forward.
Its clear that Pfizer, like far too many US corporations, has left behind the business of making products for the business of making money. Under the cover of enhancing or maximizing shareholder value a slogan that allows executives to inflate their stock-based pay while fulfilling a pretend legal obligation these companies are not only imperiling their own futures, but theyre also transferring money from the pockets of ordinary Americans to those of an elite few. Putting a halt to tax inversions is one of many ways to stem the flow of income to members of the value-extracting class who populate the top 0.1%. Banning buybacks by rescinding SEC Rule 10b-18, which for over three decades has given companies like Pfizer license to manipulate the stock market, should be a top priority of any progressive political agenda.
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By Eric Staats of the Naples Daily News
A plan that could guide federal environmental permitting decisions for the next 50 years in rural Collier County gets a public unveiling this week.
A group of large landowners and their conservation allies are pushing the plan that would create a super-permit under the Endangered Species Act to allow up to 45,000 acres of development including land where the iconic Florida panther is making its last stand in return for 107,000 acres of preservation.
Proponents say the incentive-based program, which would help enact the county's Rural Lands Stewardship Area growth plan that applies to farms, ranches and natural lands around Immokalee, is an improvement over existing project-by-project reviews.
But one conservation group leading opposition to the proposal says it would allow too much development and have too great an impact on the county's roads and water supply in return for too little preservation.
Landowners submitted a draft of the plan, dubbed a Habitat Conservation Plan or HCP, in April 2015, and it already has undergone behind-the-scenes discussions with regulators. Now, with much of the plan's details still undetermined, the public is getting a chance to weigh in.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is having a so-called "scoping meeting" Tuesday to gather input on what the agency should include in an environmental review of the proposal. It kicks off a public comment period, one of several that federal law requires before any HCP would ever get approved.
"HCPs by their nature are a consensus building exercise," said FWS biologist Ken McDonald, the agency's point man on the Collier HCP review. "It's a lot of people to get on board with an idea."
McDonald called HCP's the "most democratic regulatory process we have" he's overseen the development of two HCPs in Tennessee that focused on protection of bats, birds and a fish called a darter.
"It (the Collier HCP) has tremendous potential to do great things for listed species if it's done well," McDonald said.
The Collier HCP would give landowners the permission they would need to impact imperiled species like the panther but also 10 bird species, like the wood stork and red-cockaded woodpeckers; the Florida bonneted bat; diamondback rattlesnake and eastern indigo snake; and the Big Cypress fox squirrel.
The panther, though, is expected to attract most of the debate, in part because of its high-profile but also because preserving panther habitat also preserves habitat for many of the other species covered by the plan.
Landowners proposing the HCP are Alico Inc., Barron Collier Investments Ltd., Collier Enterprises Management Inc., Consolidated Citrus Limited Partnership, English Bros. Partnership, Heller Bros. Packing Corp., John E. Price Jr. Trust, Pacific Land Ltd. and the Sunniland Family Partnership.
That includes Immokalee ranch owner Liesa Priddy, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission member who took a lead role in pushing that agency's controversial panther policy paper some have interpreted as a step toward weakening protections for Florida panthers.
The Florida Wildlife Federation, Audubon of the Western Everglades (formerly Collier County Audubon), Audubon of Florida and Defenders of Wildlife are backing the proposed HCP.
The plan has its roots in a landmark challenge by the Federation and Audubon of Collier County's growth plan in the 1990s. After a state-mandated growth moratorium stemming from the groups' victory in the challenge, Collier County approved the Rural Lands Stewardship Program that forms the basis for the proposed HCP.
Audubon policy advocate Brad Cornell said the HCP would create a network of interconnected preserves that Florida panthers could use to expand their range beyond increasingly cramped quarters in Collier County for the growing panther population.
Cornell said the incentive-based HCP is a better way to preserve panther habitat than top-down regulation that risks creating an inadequate checkerboard of preserves and endless litigation.
"For a panther, checkerboard is death," he said.
But the Conservancy argues the HCP, as proposed, tips too much in favor of landowners at the expense of the public good. The group has suggested that nearly the same amount of development can be accommodated on less valuable panther habitat.
"There's a better way here that needs to be explored," Conservancy natural resources policy director Jennifer Hecker said. "This is really important, to get this plan right."
Collier Enterprises vice president Christian Spilker said it was premature to judge the proposed HCP and took a jab at the Conservancy's anti-HCP campaign.
"To judge it now and issue alerts and get people stirred up against it doesn't make sense to me because nobody has all the facts yet," Spilker said.
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If you go
Who: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
What: Habitat Conservation Plan public input meeting When: Tuesday, April 12, 5 to 7 p.m.
Where: University of Florida/Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences extension office, 14700 Immokalee Road
For more information about the Eastern Collier County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan, or HCP, go to www.easterncollierHCPEIS.com.
SHARE Ventriloquist Brenda Stelzer and her puppet George Henry entertain every Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m. at Mel's Diner in Naples, Florida. Stelzer will be speaking at the Vent Haven International Ventriloquist Convention in July along with other renowned ventriloquists like Jeff Dunham (center of left photo). (Photo by Gregg Pachkowski/Special to the Daily News) Marilyn Ray and her granddaughter, Delaney Ray, 8, of Sherman, Illinois, have a laugh as they enjoy the entertainment of ventriloquist Brenda Stelzer and her puppet George Henry during their weekly appearance at Mel's Diner in Naples, Florida, on Tuesday, March 29, 2016. Stelzer will be speaking at the Vent Haven International Ventriloquist Convention in July. (Photo by Gregg Pachkowski/Special to the Daily News) A guest snaps a photo of ventriloquist Brenda Stelzer and her puppet George Henry during their weekly appearance at Mel's Diner in Naples, Florida, on Tuesday, March 29, 2016. Stelzer will be speaking at the Vent Haven International Ventriloquist Convention in July. (Photo by Gregg Pachkowski/Special to the Daily News) Peter Dunbar, of Lake Grove, New York, enjoys the entertainment of ventriloquist Brenda Stelzer and her puppet George Henry during their weekly appearance at Mel's Diner in Naples, Florida, on Tuesday, March 29, 2016. Stelzer will be speaking at the Vent Haven International Ventriloquist Convention in July. (Photo by Gregg Pachkowski/Special to the Daily News) Related Photos Ventriloquist Brenda Stelzer performs
By Kristine Gill of the Naples Daily News
George the puppet doesn't laugh, he yuks. It's a rolling, childlike giggle that follows every single one of his jokes. The doll has been cracking himself up for the 46 years he's been with ventriloquist Brenda Stelzer.
"I look younger and you look older," George pointed out one recent Thursday at the Mel's Diner in Bonita Springs where the two visit patrons weekly.
"That's because you've been refurbished," 55-year-old Stelzer said.
"Don't you think it's your turn?" George retorted.
Stelzer is a full-time ventriloquist living in Naples and performing throughout Southwest Florida. She makes weekly stops at a handful of Mel's Diner locations and nursing homes. She performed at three centennial birthdays last year and once did a funeral for a longtime fan. A few years ago, she was invited to audition for "America's Got Talent," but ended up not making the cut.
This summer though, she'll take part in a panel at the 40th annual Vent Haven ConVENTion near Cincinnati, discussing women in ventriloquism. Stelzer said it's a question-and-answer style discussion that will likely center around the lack of women in the profession and the differing expectations between male and female comics. It's an interesting topic, considering Stelzer is the voice of a male puppet whose favorite hobby is hitting on women of all ages.
"I think they're OK with it because I'm a woman," Stelzer said. "If I were a male ventriloquist, I'd get a black eye saying some of these things."
Annie Roberts, a ventriloquist and media coordinator for the convention, said the panel usually includes four women and a moderator and addresses everything from the preference audiences have for male puppets over female puppets to what is appropriate for woman ventriloquists to wear on stage.
Roberts said about 600 ventriloquists from 14 countries have attended past events. Contrary to what some may think about the profession, interest in ventriloquism remains steady and has even grown as celebrities such as Jeff Dunham become household names and national TV talent shows feature the acts.
"We've always had steady interest," Roberts said. "It's just that from a pop culture standpoint, the only place you'd see a ventriloquist used to be at a live show locally."
During their Thursday visit to Mel's, Stelzer visited a family in a corner booth that has been part of the George fan club for the past 14 years he's been visiting the diner.
"She has a real following of people, believe it or not," said part-time Estero resident Ernie Banks.
Banks and his wife, Sherli Banks, first met George at a Minnesota Twins spring training game. When Banks introduced himself, George thought he was trying to pass as the Chicago Cubs shortstop and first baseman.
"Ernie Banks," George exclaimed. "You've gotta be pulling my strings!"
Now Banks and his wife bring their daughter and grandchildren to visit Mel's whenever they're in town. George has been pining over their granddaughter Kelsy since he met her four years ago.
"The first time he met her, his head spun," Banks said. When George learned Kelsy had a real life human boyfriend, a cross-country feud started.
On Thursday, George recorded a video message for Kelsy's beau, Alex.
"Hit the road, Alex," he said. "May the best man win, and that's me!"
Banks said Stelzer has nailed the persona of a young man for her puppet.
"What's unusual for a woman is to ask questions like a man," he said.
Outside the restaurant, kids and their parents lit up at the sight of George, who sat on Stelzer's leg, craning his neck and wiggling his eyebrows. His face, fixed in a permanent smile, seemed to invite the curious. And George had a joke for each of them, usually pertaining to the fact that he's made out of wood:
"I told Donald Trump I'd be his running mate," George said. "Our bumper stickers will say Trump and Stump."
"Isn't it amazing what a little Lemon Pledge will do for you?" he said, noting his smooth skin.
"I've been coming here so long I'm part of the furniture," Stelzer said.
"I am!" George piped.
Stelzer got the puppet from the owners of a dance studio she used to attend in Naples. George was specially made for her in London by renowned figure maker Len Insull. Stelzer had been using a primitive puppet to hone her skills when she first became interested in the craft. George has always had large brown eyes, long lashes and expressive eyebrows. But his flirtatious nature and quick wit came later as Stelzer developed his personality over time.
"The voice was kind of instant," Stelzer said. .
Stelzer is a pro at her craft. Her lips don't move as she powers her puppet, and their banter never misses a beat. But when George stops talking, and Stelzer starts, that familiar yuk resurfaces.
"I have to be careful around him," Stelzer said, lest her younger fans catch on. "We have the same laugh."
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A federal wildlife agency is taking the next step this coming week on a really big deal for Collier County.
If at all possible, we urge you to get involved. At a minimum, pay close attention.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is conducting a public meeting Tuesday on what's called a Habitat Conservation Plan for areas inland from Golden Gate Estates to the interior regions of Collier County, stretching east of State Road 29.
An examination of where future development could be allowed vs. where habitat and species protection should take precedence for the next 50 years spans more than 152,000 acres of privately owned land in eastern Collier.
Let's put that big number in perspective. The city of Naples is about 16.5 square miles of land and water. At 640 acres per square mile, Naples is about 10,500 acres. So the area in question is like stringing Naples together 15 times. Still hard to visualize? The land area of New York City is about 195,000 acres, not much more than this 152,124 acres under consideration in Collier.
How did we get here?
Last year, a consortium of major land owners interested in the future, including agriculture, got together to talk about what might be allowed. They brought to the table some environmental groups that have an abiding interest in land preservation and protection of endangered species, notably the Florida panther and wood storks.
Among major landowners involved are Collier Enterprises Management Inc., Barron Collier Investments, Consolidated Citrus Limited Partnership and Alico Inc. Among environmental groups are the Florida Wildlife Federation and Audubon of the Western Everglades. Notably absent from current participants, and parting ways with the approach in this collaboration, is the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.
Creation of this habitat plan is authorized under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Planning documents for the study area show 10 species already listed for federal protection or which could be, along with six under state protection.
What's next?
This isn't a done deal. It's in the early stages of the review process.
A draft has been submitted to Fish and Wildlife (www.easterncollierHCPEIS.com) and the agency is preparing a draft Environmental Impact Statement for public review.
Representatives of the participating landowners and environmental groups, in a meeting Thursday with the Naples Daily News editorial board, emphasized that what they want at this point is for citizens to get informed and involved.
Planning for future growth in Collier County, which is about the size of Delaware, is an issue we identified as urgent for 2016. This initiative is one reason why.
The next two steps come Tuesday. Commissioner Penny Taylor is asking the County Commission to get staff involved in the process. That's a wise move considering county planners are undertaking four long-range growth plan updates, including lands east of the Estates and surrounding Immokalee.
Also Tuesday, the federal agency is holding a public meeting to help scope the work. It's from 5-7 p.m. at the University of Florida IFAS/County Extension Auditorium, 14700 Immokalee Road, next to the Collier County Fairgrounds.
A week later is a 10 a.m. online meeting; information about it is on the website we noted earlier. Comments about the study's scope can be sent through April 24 to the federal agency's South Florida Ecological Services Office, 1339 20th St., Vero Beach, Fla. 32960.
Our thoughts?
Beyond urging your involvement, it's too early to pass judgment on the draft plan.
We fully understand why land owners want to know what the future rules are before they invest multimillions of dollars pursuing projects. We applaud environmental groups and others who want to ensure there are wildlife corridors to sustain species, significantly a route for the Florida panther to migrate into Hendry County and get north of the Caloosahatchee River to expand their survival territory.
It's too early to say if this habitat plan meets the needs. But it's not too early for you to begin to have your say.
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William Zeckhausen, Laconia, New Hampshire, and Naples
Licensed pastoral psychotherapist
Alzheimer's help
The Naples Daily News published poll results of Florida physicians, over 50 percent of whom withhold diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease from patients, concerned about their response.
That decision, justified as concern for patients, certainly exists beyond Florida. My motivation and confidence submitting this is two-fold. I received the diagnosis two years ago and have had a fulfilling experience in a multiple therapeutic career facilitating weekly physician support groups for 30 years.
I'm sure from that experience, with rare exception, no physician feels untroubled about withholding a diagnosis they feel unequipped by experience or training to be helpful for their patient.
All physicians should be concerned for patient response in receiving a horrendous diagnosis. But justifying withholding is a profound mistake. The diagnosis is traumatic, typically triggering panic, rage, depression, and suicidal thoughts, fortunately seldom carried out. But how much more vulnerable is a patient with Alzheimer's not knowing what is going on?
There are better ways to express concern for their patients. And giving it by phone isn't one of them. A physician unable to sensitively share a caring diagnosis should refer it to a trusted colleague able to do so. Hopefully the patient leaves the interview, predictably discouraged or shocked, feeling understood, with hope of eventually taking it in as a doable challenge.
The Alzheimer's Association is online (www.alz.org), reached at 1-(800) 272-3900 for patients, physicians and caregivers. They send a free packet with practical information and phone coverage is 24-7 with competent, compassionate, trained staff. The book, "Alzheimer's from the Inside Out" by Dr. Richard Taylor, a psychologist with Alzheimer's himself, is valuable.
For myself, feeling lost, in reading his book my responses were normalized, a confidence restorer. I learned of his and other books through the Alzheimer's Association.
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Robert Rappaport, Naples
Board critic
One of the more prolific letter writers to the Naples Daily News is Anne Hartley.
Her letters the past couple of years are almost always about Naples public schools and these letters mostly are critical of her perceived enemies, mostly School Board members Erika Donalds and Kelly Lichter, and any others who might agree with these two ladies.
My motives were also criticized in online comments to a September 2015 letter of mine wherein I identified myself as a mathematics teacher at Mason Classical Academy.
Her latest missive is critical of Donalds for sensibly proposing, among other things, that the finances of the Collier County Public Schools, an entity that spends nearly $1 billion annually, be audited. Federal law requires all corporations whose shares are traded publicly be audited.
Why would anyone, without something to hide, be opposed to a government entity spending such an enormous amount of money being audited. Perhaps she is mathematically challenged and doesn't know one billion seconds are 32 years.
The rest of her latest letter tries to warn us citizens against the supposed dangers of electing new members to the School Board that might ("heaven forbid") align themselves with Donalds and Lichter.
I say if you follow her advice you are only supporting special interests (i.e. teachers' union) and not the best interests of the student population.
She should tell us which groups she represents and then let us decide how unbiased and objective her opinions really are.
SHARE Elaine L. Reed President and CEO Naples Historical Society Inc.
By Elaine L. Reed, President & CEO Naples Historical Society
Naples Historical Society's mission is to preserve Naples history. The strategy endorsed by the Society's board of directors is to do this through a series of initiatives.
These initiatives are major efforts to reach all segments of the community: old-timers, children, longtime and new residents, local business and industry, and visitors.
There are 10 strategically crafted programs that flow under these initiatives, and each has metrics, milestones and generates positive impacts for the short- and long-term benefit of the community.
One such initiative is the Naples Historic District Initiative. It is perhaps the Society's most significant and challenging one to date.
The Society is working to find a way to extol the unique virtue and personality of the Naples Historic District, a downtown area that is less than 1/10th of one square mile, by having the moral courage to introduce and rally behind a fresh and recognized approach to historic preservation, one that reflects the extraordinary breadth of historic preservation and still respects the needs of the community at large.
The complexity of this project runs deep, and understanding the decisions made to move it forward require a thorough understanding of the challenges that have existed in Naples, sometimes for decades.
Sharing our assessments, thinking and decision-making rationale about these challenges was the centerpiece of two public information programs the Society hosted in March. Of the many ideas presented, one item we emphasized has played a significant role in the preservation disaster that has affected Naples: that is, misinformation. That includes everything from not understanding the big picture to perpetuating poorly drawn assumptions.
Our proposal includes, but is not limited to the following:
1. Recalibrating the existing processes in our local preservation review process so that unintended impediments to preserving historic structures can be removed. Why create a fuss for someone who wants to use their own financial resources to preserve a house?
2. Educating the community (government, resident, trades, and more) to the vast and broad interpretations that surround historic preservation. The National Register of Historic Places and the Secretary of the Interior have what are referred to as Preservation Approaches there are four approaches used throughout the nation, and they allow an extraordinary amount of leeway for the owner and his/her house team. Why not tap into that?
3. Introducing the discussion for new construction guidelines in the vernacular. This would include general suggestions for scale, height, roof, roof pitch, rhythm of openings, etc., for houses in the Naples Historic District. An important note is the word "suggest" we are not proposing to mandate this.
We realize the economic reality that exists in Naples, and that means that unless someone buys every historic house and fixes them up with their own finances, some houses will fall. We also realize that original construction for some old houses was not as strong as others, and as a result, termite damage may be too much to overcome.
For these and more reasons, we believe that if a house is demolished, we want to suggest design guidelines to reflect the broad visual integrity of Naples.
With our proposal, a homeowner can deny our guidelines; there is no infringement on property rights. That's why this will work.
There are 67 counties in Florida and 52 of them have historic districts; 32 have multiple historic districts. Sarasota County has 17 and Palm Beach County has 16 historic districts. Collier County has one historic district, and it has not had any support since being recognized by the federal government in 1987. It's time to do so, because this is the last chance.
One option on the table is to continue to do nothing. We believe this would render the greatest disservice to the preservation of Naples as we know it.
A call to preserve Naples cannot be a directive alone. It cannot be a wish. There must be a plan. The Society has a reasonable vision, many say is intrepid, but it is based on sound judgment and we are making solid headway with the residents of the district and many others in the related industries in Naples.
We rely on the community to learn more about it before believing in propagated misinterpretations of those who have not studied the issues in Naples. We did our homework, and we ask for your support as we move this project forward over the next year.
To view a map of the Naples Historic District and read mountains of support information, please visit the Society's website: www.NaplesHistoricalSociety.org.
Our tagline says it all: "It Takes a Community to Preserve One!"
Six physicians with Physicians Primary Care of Southwest Florida have been named Top Doctors by Castle Connolly Medical Ltd. in New York.
Family Medicine physician Charles Curtis, M.D., Pediatrician Georgia Rocha-Rodriguez, M.D., and Obstetrician/Gynecologists Paul Joslyn, M.D., Blaise Kovaz, M.D., Sarah Krauss, M.D., and Mary Yankaskas, M.D. will be featured in the June issue of Gulfshore Life magazine. Its the 11th consecutive year that Dr. Yankaskas has been recognized as a Top Doctor. Dr. Curtis, Dr. Joslyn and Dr. Kovaz are repeat winners from 2013 - 2015.
Selections are made through a national survey of physicians and hospital administrators conducted by Castle Connolly, an independent research and information company that is the nations leading provider of information on top physicians. After the votes are tallied, Castle Connolly ensures that the physicians meet the companys criteria, which include board certification, years of experience in their specialties, and a clean disciplinary record.
Castle Connolly is widely recognized for its extensive research of the medical profession. This demonstrates to our patients that we have been evaluated and meet their highest standards, said Dr. Yankaskas, who also is managing physician of Physicians Primary Care of Southwest Florida.
The physicians will be honored by Gulfshore Life magazine at an awards banquet.
Physicians Primary Care of Southwest Florida, a physician-owned and operated medical practice, was formed in 1996 by many long practicing local physicians and has grown to become the largest independent multi-specialty practice in Southwest Florida.
Medical specialties include family practice, internal medicine, obstetrics, gynecology, and pediatrics. PPCs offices are conveniently located in Fort Myers, Cape Coral and Lehigh Acres.
Univision Southwest Florida once again wins News Spanish TV viewing in the Ft. Myers-Naples DMA according to the February 2016 Nielsen Sweeps and enjoys tremendous ratings growth Sweeps to Sweeps in Prime Time (M-F 8-11P), News (M-F 6-7P & 11P-12A), Early Fringe (M-F 4-6P) Mornings (M-F 7-11A), Saturday Prime (8-11P) and in practically every Day-Part.
In the M-F News Blocks, Univision SW Florida delivers 27% more Households than any other Spanish TV station in the market. In Early Evening News, DLatinos, the first and longest-running Spanish TV Program in the Ft. Myers-Naples DMA, followed by the Univision Network News, delivers 38% the Household audience of its closest Spanish TV competitor (M-F 6-7P).
Univision Southwest Florida also experienced extraordinary ratings growth from the November 2015 Sweeps to February 2016 practically across the board. News audience grew 62% (M-F 6-7P & 11P-12A). Prime Time (M-F 7-11P) surged an astounding 83%. Early Fringe (M-F 4-6P) increased 55%, while Mornings (M-F 7-11A) jumped 75%. Saturday Prime (8-11P) more than doubled, growing 114%.
Our audience unquestionably continues to surge and were gratified by these latest results in the ratings, said Antonio Guernica, General Manager. Univision SW Florida enjoys significant local coverage advantages over its Spanish TV competitors. Univision is by far the top rated Spanish network, often rivaling its English language competition in audience, and the composition of the local Hispanic audience mirrors that of the national population.
We continue to be troubled, however, by the extreme ratings inconsistencies sweeps to sweeps, which lead subscribers to question the validity of Nielsens Local Meter Sample in the Ft. Myers-Naples DMA, particularly in accurately measuring viewing to Spanish TV, Guernica said. Well focus on delivering results for our advertisers not only on Univision SW Florida but also on our Azteca and UniMas Spanish television affiliates as well as in print with our monthly DLatinos Magazine and our growing slate of digital and social media initiatives.
Source: Nielsen Media Research, November 2015 and February 2016 Sweeps, Household Ratings, Fort Myers-Naples DMA.
Media Vista Group is a multi-platform Hispanic-owned media company. Its broadcast holdings include Univision and UniMas in Ft. Myers-Naples as well as Azteca America Ft. Myers-Naples. MVG also owns and operates Univision Minneapolis and Univision Kansas City. Its holdings include the DLatinos program, now in its 13th year of continuous local broadcast; D'Latinos Magazine, a monthly Spanish language lifestyle publication; and www.dlatinos.com, a Spanish interactive portal.
Backseat Drivers: Can Logano go all the way this year? Alex Weaver, Mamba Smith, and Kim Coon discuss whether Joey Logano has an advantage with his early lock-in to the Championship 4.
Even when The Boston Globe pretends to print REAL news, it's still FAKE news
Boston Globe says Trump is a murderer of families... and also the entire stock market will crash, yup yup!
Real news, fake news... who can tell the difference at The Boston Globe?
Make no mistake: This is the vaccine regime hard at work, operating in full desperation mode
(NaturalNews) The Boston Globe, a newspaper that routinely prints fake CDC vaccine propaganda as "news," now openly admits. A Sunday edition of the paper goes "full cuckoo" by literally, then publishing them under The Boston Globe banner as if they were real. Small text on the second page admits it's all fake! View the fake Boston Globe edition here (PDF).The fake Boston Globe front page featuring fabricated scare stories about Donald Trump comes off as amarried with a laughably pathetic act of credibility suicide by the once-respected paper.Donald Trump, of course, is the most outspoken vaccine critic of the 2016 presidential elections race. Back in 2012, he stated in a Fox News interview that he "strongly believes that Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are linked to exposure to vaccines."A little over two years later, his concerns about vaccine safety were confirmed by none other than Dr. William Thompson , a top CDC scientist who publicly admitted to taking part in an actual CDC conspiracy to fraudulently alter scientific evidence linking vaccines to autism in African-American boys.In late 2016, CNN moderators tried to destroy Trump's credibility by questioning his criticism of how too many vaccines are given all at once to children at too young an age. In his answer, Trump laid out the most compassionate and reasonable explanations on vaccines that has yet been offered by any candidate in this race:The Boston Globe, meanwhile, has been obediently attacking the VAXXED documentary film , falsely claiming the film is about Andrew Wakefield when it's really about Dr. William Thompson.Other CDC propaganda published by The Boston Globe includes a hilarious article entitled "Mark Zuckerberg gets his baby vaccinated. Debate ensues."Now, instead of just printing vaccine industry propaganda and CDC lies pretending to be news, The Boston Globe has gone all out and justWhy are none of us surprised to hear this?The fictional front page of The Boston Globe attacking Trump. A sidebar graphic on the right column of the Boston Globe's fake news edition shows the Dow plummeting from over 16,000 to under 10,000 under a Trump presidency, and a loony tunes tin-foil-hat article steeped in desperate paranoia declares "Curfews extended in multiple cities."At the same time The Boston Globe is publishing all this fake HOAX news under its masthead banner, the pathetic paper refuses to publish any real stories that actually matter. Nowhere in recent memory at the paper do you read about: How the EPA is a criminal organization that legalized the spreading of toxic industrial waste on U.S. farms (biosludge). The truth that vaccines injected into children still contain the toxic heavy metal mercury , which is a known neurotoxin that damages the brains of children. How so much of the vaccine science has been faked by companies like Merck , whose managers ordered its own scientists to commit scientific fraud to trick the FDA. How the entire regulatory regime under the Obama administration has crucified real scientists and science whistleblowers who tried to expose the criminality, fraud and corruption of the USDA, FDA, EPA and CDC. How the CDC is private corporation operated under the illusion of Naval law, complete with its top criminals wearing military costumes to spout "official" vaccine propaganda during every false flag outbreak. See the CDC exposed by this AntiCorruption Society story How as many as 98 million Americans were injected with cancer-causing primate viruses under the CDC's polio vaccination program that has since been memory-holed off the CDC's website.The hilarious upshot of all this is shockingly apparent: It's impossible to tell any difference between real news and fake news at The Boston Globe... becauseIn deciding to print this fictional Trump fantasy edition under its masthead, The Boston Globe has just. Before this, we were merely ignoring The Boston Globe... now we're ROFL at it. This kind of delusional fiction fantasy published under The Boston Globe banner is enough to make any respectable journalist still working at the paper want to bury their head in the sand from sheer shame. When journalism schools gave students lessons on ethics and credibility, they never imagined a mainstream paper like The Boston Globe would abandon all credibility and go all-in with fiction parading as truth-to-be.Hopefully this loony tunes idea will spread up and down the entire East Coast so that both the Washington Post and New York Times will also print their own fictional fantasy editions of their papers, too. (As if they aren't already...) In those editions, they'll have Donald Trump raping baby goats... or maybe even an account of illegal aliens raiding the White House and beating Trump to death with backpack leaf blowers. (Yeah, I just said that. Read it again.) Apparently nothing is out of bounds for these newspapers that have now gone "full retard" in their attempt to stop the one man who might actually expose the truth about vaccines (and loads of other things) if he becomes President.Witnessing how the media went intoto try to silence the VAXXED documentary by engaging in criminal threats against film festival organizers , I have no doubt that much of the effort to destroy Trump comes from his stance on exposing the fraud and criminality of the CDC, EPA and FDA. These criminal regulatory regimes will stop at absolutely nothing to hold on to power, and once-great papers like The Boston Globe are apparently more than happy to committo destroy themselves in all-out attempts to dislodge Donald Trump from his current position of electoral dominance.Now the bigger question in all this is: Where does Donald Trump stand on GMOs? For the record, Ted Cruz is a Monsanto sellout , Hillary Clinton is the Bride of Frankenfood , but Bernie Sanders is pro GMO labeling and makes the most sense so far on the issue of GMOs. (Go Vermont!)If The Boston Globe really wanted to publish a fake news edition, by the way, it didn't have to go through any special trouble to put one together. They publish fake news as real news on a daily basis!EVERY DAY IS A PARODY NEWS DAY AT THE BOSTON GLOBE.
Do you always find your hard drive storage insufficient for all the gigabytes of digital files you own? Well, this might be a strange solution, but scientists recently developed a storage that can hold 700 terabytes of files in--wait for it--a small speck of an artificial DNA.
Scientists from the University of Washington successfully developed a technology which can store data in a small thread of DNA which is so small, it's almost invisible to the naked eye.
"Researchers have developed one of the first complete systems to store digital data in DNA--allowing companies to store data that today would fill a big box store supercenter in a space the size of a sugar cube," as per a Science Daily report.
Based from the same article, the team of scientists and electrical engineers completed a whole round of data storage and retrieval of digital data using DNA molecules. If further developed and made available publicly, it will change the future of data storage in the world.
Science Daily also said the team has found triumphantly "encoded digital data from four image files into the nucleotide sequences of synthetic DNA snippets."
Experts said that the data storage solution is of utmost importance as they projected that in the year 2020, digital files needing storage would grow as much as 44 gigabytes.
Popular Science even said that if proven efficient, it will be safe to say that the "sky is the limit" when it comes to data storage.
Molecular Information Systems Lab in the University of Washington and Microsoft researchers briefly described the storage and retrieval process. They said that the data is "chopped into pieces," and then stored by "synthesizing a massive number of tiny DNA molecules." These are either dehydrated or preserved for lengthy storage.
The files can be accessed through DNA sequencing techniques, where the data can be "read" by converting it back to an image, video or document file with street addresses to reorder the data.
Currently, the major obstacle in further developing this storage technique is the cost of creating an artificial DNA.
Dr. Spike Narayan, director of Science and Technology at IBM said, "Specifically, researchers in the U.K. estimated recently that it would cost more than $12,000 per MB to encode DNA data, but only around $200 per MB to read that data back."
"The hope is that the techniques for writing DNA will catch up with the amazing progress that is happening in technology to sequence or read DNA," he added. "Until there is greater demand, it will be many years until we see greater technological adoption due to cost factors."
But scientists are hopeful that this technology will reach its full potential because it is undeniably useful to mankind.
A 32-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder in connection to the grisly killing of a young San Diego woman whose body was found stuffed in a suitcase.
Joshua M. Palmer was interviewed by homicide detectives with the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) and later arrested while he was at McGregor's Grill & Ale House in Mission Valley. He was booked into San Diego Central Jail Friday afternoon on one count of first-degree murder for the slaying of 21-year-old Shauna Haynes.
Images: Woman's Body Found in Suitcase
The gruesome case surfaced Wednesday morning when a passerby spotted a suspicious suitcase near some trash bins in downtown San Diego in the 1300 block of 7th Avenue and A Street. Police said a man who lives in the area saw the suitcase on the ground and walked over to check it out.
That man, a former Navy service member who only wished to be identified as Phil, knew something was terribly wrong when he spotted human hair peeking out of the zipper of the luggage. NBC 7 spoke to Phil Thursday and he recounted the horrific moments when he realized there was a person inside that suitcase.
The young woman found dead and stuffed inside a suitcase discovered in downtown San Diego Wednesday is 21 years old, homicide investigators with the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) confirm. NBC 7s Regina Ruiz reports.
"Thats going to be an image that I thats going to be on my mind for a while. You dont erase that. Its a person," Phil told NBC 7. "I have a mother, a sister, family friends that I love. No one deserves to be thrown out with the trash like that."
NBC 7 spoke with a local tattoo artist, Tommy Gunz, Friday night who did some tattoo work for Haynes last February at the SD Tattoo shop.
During their three-hour session, he inked the word infantry on the young womans arm, which she told him was a tribute to a friend.
Gunz said he was shocked to learn of the killing of his client.
"In a suitcase? Why, for what? Why even hurt a girl like that?" he told NBC 7.
He described Haynes as a "really nice girl," who was sort of quiet and "really sweet."
"I wish the family all the best; love and wishes," Gunz said.
According to Haynes Facebook page, she said she worked at the Old Spaghetti Factory in downtowns Gaslamp Quarter not far from where she was found dead.
A spokesperson for the restaurant told NBC 7 Haynes death is a "sad and tragic event for our whole community."
NBC 7 was there when police officers brought Palmer to San Diego Central Jail Friday afternoon. He declined to comment on the case and hung his head low as he sat in the backseat of the police car.
Police have not yet released details on the manner of Haynes' death, nor her connection to the suspect. Palmer will be arraigned in court on Tuesday.
Gunz said Palmer resembles a man Haynes was with when she got her tattoo at his shop. If that was him, Gunz said he behaved like the womans boyfriend.
"I just hope he gets what he deserves," he added.
The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information on this case can call the SDPDS Homicide Unit at (619) 531-2293 or Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.
A cat saved the day for one California family Tuesday.
When a neighbor's dog attacked a 4-year-old boy in Bakersfield, California, the surprise rescuer was the family cat, the boy's mother says.
Home security camera footage appears to show the neighbor's dog spying on the little boy from the other side of a parked car in the driveway of his house, according to a clip posted to YouTube. The dog crawls around the back of the vehicle, suddenly pouncing on the boy, clamping down on his leg.
But the family cat, Tara, was not having any of it, going after the dog, not once, but twice.
The boys mother, Erica Triantafilo, came running over to help. She told KGET she tried to chase the dog away, and it bit her, too.
I was watering a plant in the front yard, and next thing I knew, the dog just had him, Triantafilo said. Before I could even get there, before anything could happen, my cat was just on [the dog].
Tara the cat is seen in this image captured by KGET-TV, Wednesday, May 14, 2014.
According to Bakersfield police, officers were dispatched to a house on the 10700 block of Eagle Vista Dr. at 3:54 p.m. regarding a dog bite. When officers arrived, they discovered that an approximately 8-month-old male Labrador/Chow mix had attacked the boy who was riding his bike in his family's driveway, police said.
The dog approached the child from behind, grabbed the child's left leg, pulling the child to the ground and then down the driveway, police said. The boy was taken to the hospital where he received 10 stiches.
As a mother, I think every part of your brain shuts down except for 'I need to protect my child,'" Triantafilo said.
Police said that when Triantafilo tried to chase the animal off the property, she was attacked by the dog as well but was not injured.
The dog's owners voluntarily brought it to the Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Bakersfield Animal Care Center where it will be quarantined for 10 days then euthanized.
Anyone with information regarding this case is encouraged to call the Bakersfield Animal Control at (661) 326-3436.
Norwich police are warning residents to be on the lookout for a deadly strain of heroin after a fatal overdose Saturday morning and a second overdose later in the day.
Police say around 7:47 a.m. they responded to reports of an unresponsive 18-year-old man. He was later pronounced dead. Police determined the victim had recently used heroin laced with the compound Fentanyl.
Around 4:20 p.m. officers responded to another overdose call. A 21-year-old female victim was transported to William W. Backus Hospital for treatment and is expected to survive.
Neither victim has been identified at this time.
Police say in both instances the victims used heroin packaged in white glassine bags with a red ladybug marking stamp. The heroin from both incidents tested positive for Fentanyl. Police caution the community to be on the lookout for these marked bags as Fentanyl is a dangerous compound and the drugs marked with the ladybugs are lethal. Police stress that heroin laced with Fentanyl is being distributed in other packaging as well and has contributed to an increase in fatal overdoses in the region.
Police also remind residents that using any illegal drug or controlled substance can result in death.
Anyone with information about these bags, or any illegal drugs or narcotics is encouraged to call the Norwich Police Department anonymous tip line at (860) 886-5561 ext. 500.
Ferry operators interested in carrying cargo and passengers to Cuba have opened discussions with officials at several Florida ports.
Such service has not yet begun because the Cuban government has not approved a U.S. ferry to use one of its ports, but ferries are expected to be a popular way to travel and ship cargo from Florida to the Caribbean island.
Jorge Fernandez, CEO of Havana Ferry Partners of Fort Lauderdale, tells The Tampa Tribune that the company recently met with Cuban government officials and is optimistic it will receive permission to set sail as early as June.
Fernandez is interested in sailing from Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Key West, but he also has been exploring ports in the Tampa Bay area. Port Manatee would be preferred over ports in Tampa and St. Petersburg, he said, while in Cuba a landing in Havana would be preferred over the port in Santiago.
A ferry from Port Manatee would take roughly eight hours to reach Havana. That's 90 minutes closer than St. Petersburg and three hours closer than Tampa.
Ferry service would be cheaper than baggage fees for a flight for passengers bringing bulk goods to family in Cuba, said Phil Richards, president of Havana Ferry Partners. Tickets would cost roughly $290, and the first 40 to 60 pounds of baggage would be free, he said.
Havana Ferry Partners owns one ferry, a 40-meter, high-speed, wind-piercing Catamaran that can transport as many as 400 passengers but no bulk cargo. It likely would leave from Key West, Richards said.
The company is exploring options for vessels that can carry cargo from other ports.
``A ferry operation makes profits on the cargo and not on the passengers,'' said Port Manatee Executive Director Carlos Buqueras. ``It would be a real convenience not just for our area but every county south to Collier.''
The Tampa Bay area is home to the third-largest Cuban-American population in the U.S. but it currently has no regularly scheduled cargo lines serving Cuba. Neither does the Port of Miami, though Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale and the Port of Jacksonville do have regular cargo service to Cuba.
Port Tampa Bay is talking with ferries looking to connect the area to Cuba, said spokesman Andy Fobes.
``We have the terminals and the appropriate on-site regulatory agencies and facilities already in place to handle passengers,'' Fobes said, ``and one day, once the embargo is lifted, cargo.''
Port St. Petersburg, owned by the city and marketed as a luxury yacht center under the name ``Port St. Pete,'' would likely host ferries carrying mainly passengers with limited cargo space, said executive director Walt Miller.
The infrastructure at Cuba's ports will be tested when U.S. cruise ships begin sailing there from Miami next month.
``The port facilities, cargo handling, security, customs, immigration _ all of it will be under duress due to the cruises,'' said John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. ``I don't see Cuba moving forward on ferries until they are comfortable with the cruise ship operations.''
A retired U.S. Marine who was imprisoned in Mexico for almost a year on gun charges has been arrested again, this time on a minor drug charge in Indiana.
Retired Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, 27, was booked into Dearborn County jail on Thursday for carrying under three grams of marijuana.
Tahmooressi will spend one month in jail for the offense, according to records on the Dearborn County Sheriff's Department website.
The retired Marine made international headlines in 2014 when he spent eight months behind bars for crossing the U.S.-Mexico border with loaded guns.
U.S. politicians, veterans groups and social media campaigns demanded Mexican officials release the veteran who had been in treatment for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) .
The 26-year-old Florida man said he got lost at a San Diego freeway ramp that sent him across the San Ysidro Port of Entry with no way to turn back on March 31, 2014. Mexican authorities found three loaded guns and ammunition in the back of his truck.
The weapons were bought legally in the U.S., however, it's illegal to possess weapons in Mexico.
Tahmooressi did not admit wrongdoing, and he still maintains his innocence, his attorney said.
Thursday's incident was not the first time Tahmooressi has been arrested following the cross-border offense that made headlines.
On March 12, 2015, he was arrested in Twin City, Georgia on charges of driving under the influence, reckless driving, improper passing and open container violation, according to Twin City Police Chief Johnny Lee.
The murder of a woman by a former boyfriend who then killed himself outside a central Pennsylvania ice cream shop last fall has prompted state lawmakers to take another look at the commonwealth's protection from abuse law.
State House members last week unanimously adopted a resolution directing the Joint State Government Commission, the research organization that serves the General Assembly, to examine whether "blind spots" or "gaps" in the current law place victims at risk.
State Rep. Mauree Gingrich, R-Lebanon, said she sponsored the resolution following the Labor Day murder of Stacey Pennington, 46, of South Lebanon Township, outside The Jigger Shop near the victim's Gretna Emporium. Police said she was killed by Patrick Derr, 47, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
Pennsylvania law allows victims of domestic violence to seek a judicial order preventing their abuser from making further contact with the victim. Authorities said Pennington had obtained a protection from abuse order against Derr, a former boyfriend who was scheduled to be sentenced in two days after pleading guilty to assault and harassment.
Although the law has provided helpful and even life-saving aid to domestic violence victims, Gingrich said in a release that "recent events" prompted her to seek another look at possible deficiencies that can be corrected.
The resolution said "the real-world experiences of advocates, attorneys, law enforcement officers, judges, victims and family members demonstrate that further improvement in the law or its application may be possible and desirable." The commission is to examine practices and procedures of implanting the law with the emphasis on identifying any "blind spots or gaps" and report any findings or recommendations within nine months.
"Of course, no law is perfect, and no law can guarantee a victim's absolute safety," but lawmakers must constantly evaluate the effectiveness of laws and try to improve them, Gingrich said.
A Philadelphia store owner says a couple used his kindness as an opportunity to steal from him on Saturday.
Andy Cohen, who's owned the Mattress and Furniture Outlet, on Kensington Avenue near Buckius Street on the border of Frankford and Juniata Park for about five years, said a man and a woman came into his shop on Saturday. The woman told Cohen she was a nurse and needed a bed for an older disabled woman for whom she cares.
Cohen said he spent more than a half-hour with the pair, helping them to find a mattress and then tying the mattress to the car for them.
Things went awry when he went back into the warehouse to get the box spring to bring to the car, the store owner said.
Andy Cohen/Mattress and Furniture Outlet
When he returned, the couple was nowhere to be found. He helped another customer, and a short time later, he discovered that his iPad, which had been sitting on a counter in the store, was missing.
At first, Cohen said he figured he'd misplaced the iPad -- but then he looked through surveillance video and was shocked at what he discovered: In the video, a man and a woman can be seen walking up to a counter. The man picks up the iPad, grins to himself, and puts it down his pants before the pair walk away and out of the store.
Cohen said in the half-decade he's owned the furniture store, this is the first time he's ever been the victim of a theft.
"We give personal service for each customer, and even in this case, we tried to give the best service for a disabled woman, and [while] we try to give the best service, the lady steals from my store," Cohen told NBC10.
A Kensington Avenue shopkeeper says a couple used his kindness as an opportunity to steal from him while he helped them on Saturday. His surveillance cameras captured the theft.
"It's insane," he said. "You try to give the best service for the customer, and they steal from you."
Luckily for Cohen -- and unfortunately for the suspected thieves -- his surveillance cameras captured clear shots of both people. He contacted the police, he said, and detectives are working on the case. Cohen said he decided to share the surveillance video with NBC10 on Sunday in hopes not only that the suspects will be caught, but also that nobody else will fall victim.
"I hope that they're not gonna do it again," Cohen said. "When the news is involved and it's on camera, people are gonna think twice. We're trying to leave the message that we're trying to live in a better society."
Anyone with information on the theft should contact the Philadelphia Police tipline at 215-686-8477 or text a tip to PPD TIP (773847).
Joni Mitchell once famously sang, They paved paradise and put up a parking lot. That phrase can be applied here and now quite literally to City Heights rock & roll stalwart, the Til-Two Club. Before assuming the worst -- no, the beloved club isnt going anywhere -- some impending changes are around the corner.
The venue, situated at 4746 El Cajon Blvd., goes back to 1948 and was purchased most recently in 2010 by Mick Rossler and Dannielle Cobb (who also own/operate the Tower Bar down the street). When they took over the club from the then-Beauty Bar, they left most of it intact save a replica of the original Til-Two Club sign that was hoisted out front, new coats of paint, and some inside aesthetics.
The all-important stage, which took up an outdoor area of the club, stayed in place. With noise ordinances in place, how theyve continued to put on the raucous rock/punk shows theyre known for boggles the mind. Turns out, complaints havent been much of an issue, according to Rossler.
[Wed get noise complaints] only very occasionally if we had a show during the week that went late, but the neighbors have been really good about it. It doesnt seem to bother them too much.
One can only hope that continues. In May, Til-Two will undergo a massive structural change to accommodate the construction of new neighborhood projects.
Its been in the process for a long time, Rossler told SoundDiego by phone. Theyre going to build some low-income apartments behind us and also a coffee shop and a little parking lot [where the stage is now]. We were a little worried at first, but theyve actually been talking to the community and they decided to base the project around us, even -- theyve redesigned the apartments to fit into the Art Deco thing. Were actually happy about it.
So that outdoor stage area? Gone. You might be thinking: What is Til-Two going to do for shows? Well, theyve got some plans in mind.
Were meeting with someone tomorrow that does stage construction, Rossler explained. Im picturing having the stage where the roll-up door is right now. Well also take out the dropped ceiling right there. Which, actually wont be too bad.
The bars co-owner said theyre basically ready to roll when necessary.
They pushed [construction] back to May 16. So the plan is as soon as that happens, well build the new stage pretty quickly. At the most, maybe two or three weeks if we have to do some major stuff. So it wont interfere with shows too much. And then in June, were thinking about maybe taking out a wall or making the actual bar smaller so we can fit more people.
With a four-story apartment complex moving in directly behind them, our conversation circled back around to the noise issue and the influx of new residents about to move in. Surely, having a roof over the stage will help, right? Rossler agreed.
Yea. I think well have some sound people come in and make it so the noise doesnt escape the room too much.
While Til-Two preps for new neighbors and a change to the venue, it was clear that its owners were welcoming the transition and have their minds on the future of the establishment.
Theres many positive things coming from this for one, well have an actual roof, Rossler said. That was always kind of a worry, with the noise and the weather. And one day, maybe if the insurance place on the corner ever moves, itd be cool to move into that space too.
Dustin Lothspeich plays in Diamond Lakes and Boy King, and runs Gear and Loathing in San Diego. Follow his updates on Twitter or contact him directly.
Women in California can now get birth control directly from a pharmacist without a prescription from their doctor.
A law that allows California pharmacists to directly provide prescription contraceptives went into effect Friday.
The new law gives pharmacists the ability to dispense hormonal contraceptives that women can administer themselves, including transdermal, vaginal and injection prescription birth control methods, the San Jose Mercury News reported.
The CEO of California Pharmacists Association said that
"there are no restrictions for women to get birthcontrol from their pharmacist," said Jon Roth, CEO of California Pharmacists Association. "The only restriction would be if, during the medical screening, the pharmacist determins a contraindication clinically." In that case, he says, patients would be referred back to their doctor for further evaluation.
But it's not a simple over-the counter process. Women requesting birth control will have to complete a health questionnaire, and a pharmacist will also consult with the patient about the most suitable form of birth control.
If the contraceptive requested poses a high blood pressure risk, the woman's blood pressure must be taken before a prescription is issued.
Women still need to see a doctor to get an IUD or a contraceptive implant since they require a medical procedure to be administered.
"Community pharmacies are the face of neighborhood health care -- open beyond normal business hours, and patients do not need an appointment to see their pharmacist," Roth said. "That means pharmacists providing contraception will go a long way to expand women's birth control."
California joined Oregon as the only states that allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control.
Critics say the new law sends the wrong message to teenage girls by allowing them to more easily get contraceptives.
"They say it's for women, but they mean anyone," including teenage girls, California Right to Life spokeswoman Camille Giglio said.
"The ability to get contraceptives from yet another source is not a benefit to young people," she added. "It is a barrier to communication between a mother and a child."
Copyright Associated Press
A panel of Maryland lawmakers reached a hard-fought compromise Saturday night on a measure to make major reforms to the state's correctional system.
The agreement reached by House and Senate negotiators puts the bill on a path for passage by the legislature, which adjourns Monday at midnight. The bill, which is months in the making, aims to save money by incarcerating nonviolent inmates less and investing savings in drug treatment.
``It tackles issues all over the criminal justice system,'' said Sen. Robert Zirkin, D-Baltimore County. ``It tackles everything from when somebody gets arrested, to their sentencing, to what happens when they're in jail, to treatment options, to what happens years later when they're trying to clean their own record and everything in between.''
Sen. Kathleen Dumais, D-Montgomery, said after the tough negotiations: ``It was a major undertaking.''
The bill eliminates mandatory-minimum sentences for nonviolent, mid- to lower-level drug dealers. It also includes provisions resembling a bill supported by Gov. Larry Hogan that would model state law after the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corruption Organization Act to help better prosecute drug traffickers. It also includes provisions for victim restitution.
Lawmakers finished work on a bill to strengthen the state's equal pay law by prohibiting businesses from retaliating against employees for discussing or disclosing salaries, sending it to Hogan's desk. For some, though, lawmakers were cutting it too close on significant legislation.
Rich Leotta, the father of a Montgomery County police officer who died last year after being hit by a drunken driver, came to the capital to once again urge lawmakers to pass the strongest version of a bill to require ignition interlock devices in vehicles of all drunken drivers on first offense. While the House and Senate passed legislation earlier in the session, Leotta said he didn't think he would be ``fighting for this tooth and nail'' with two days left in the session for the strongest version of ``Noah's Law,'' which is named for his son.
``So we're having this roller coaster ride _ this roller coaster ride _ to get to this point today, and we're still struggling to get the strongest bill out, which is the Senate version,'' Leotta said, with his wife and police officers by his side at a news conference in a statehouse hallway.
The stronger measure passed by the Senate would require ignition interlock systems to be installed in vehicles right after someone blows a .08 or higher in a breath test. The House bill that doesn't require ignition interlock until the driver is convicted of drunken driving. Ignition interlock requires drivers to blow into a device that prevents vehicles from starting if drivers have had too much to drink.
Lawmakers also will be negotiating some substantial differences in a modest tax-relief plan. The Senate includes tax cuts to the state's four highest tax brackets as well as tax relief for low-income workers and a small cut for middle-income workers, while the House focuses relief to middle- and low-income workers.
Lawmakers have work to do on a police reform bill. The lengthy measure is the product of months of work by a panel that was convened shortly after the Baltimore riots last year following the death of Freddie Gray, who was injured in a Baltimore Police Department van and later died. The measure not only changes policies on how police are disciplined, but also in how they are trained and hired. A key difference in the bills relates to whether civilians would have voting powers on boards that review complaints against police.
House Speaker Michael Busch, D-Anne Arundel, said he is hopeful lawmakers will reach accord on the major issues before session ends.
``I think, everything considered, I think we're in pretty good shape going into Monday,'' the speaker said.
Air Force officials on Saturday identified the two airmen killed in an apparent murder-suicide at a U.S. air base in San Antonio Texas.
Tech. Sgt. Steven D. Bellino, 41, and Lt. Col. William A. Schroeder, 39, were found dead Friday around 8:50 a.m. inside an office of the 342nd Training Squadron Headquarters at the Medina Training Annex of Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Brig. Gen. Robert LaBrutta said in a statement.
LaBrutta called the death of the airman and his commanding officer a "workplace violence incident." According to a senior U.S. official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, Bellino targeted Schroeder before turning the gun on himself.
"The 37th Training Wing mourns the loss of our Airmen and family members," said Brig. Gen. Trent H. Edwards, the Commander of the 37th Training Wing where both members were assigned. "Our primary focus at this time is to take care of the family and the men and women who are grieving our losses. A tragedy of this type is felt by each and every member, but we will pull together to help our own."
The FBI said Saturday Bellino was a Special Agent for the agency and resigned in May 2013 after less than two years. It did not say why Bellino resigned and added that "because this is an ongoing investigation, please direct further inquiries to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI).
Meanwhile, investigators from the Air Force and FBI are tracing two Glock firearms found near the bodies of the two men inside a building that holds classrooms and offices.
Military-issued and personal firearms are heavily restricted on the base and it's not clear whether the gunman was authorized to have a weapon or how he managed to get inside while armed, according to Dan Hawkins, a spokesman for the base.
"Allowing everyone to carry personal firearms would make the job of our security professionals much more difficult," Hawkins said. He also said security officers must be notified if a personal weapon is being brought onto the installation and the firearm must be registered, in addition to other requirements.
The shooting prompted a lockdown of Lackland and surrounding schools for more than an hour.
Friday's shooting is the latest to occur at a military facility in Texas in the last several years.
In January 2015, an Army veteran and former clerk at the veterans' clinic at Fort Bliss in El Paso shot and killed a psychologist, then killed himself. About a year earlier, three soldiers were killed and 16 wounded in an attack at Fort Hood near Killeen by Army Spc. Ivan A. Lopez, who also killed himself.
And in the deadliest attack to occur at a U.S. military installation, 13 people were killed and 31 were wounded in a mass shooting in 2009 at Fort Hood. Nidal Hasan, a former U.S. Army major, was convicted and sentenced to death in that shooting.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
His presidential rivals thousands of miles away, Ted Cruz warned Jewish donors on Saturday that Donald Trump could trigger a general election "bloodbath" for the Republican Party.
"If Donald Trump is the nominee, it is an absolute disaster for Republicans, for conservatives and for the country," the Texas senator declared, charging that Trump would jeopardize control of the House and the Senate and tilt the balance of power at the Supreme Court away from conservatives.
Cruz earned a warm reception, yet his appearance came amid an overall sense of dissatisfaction from many Jewish Republicans, gathered for their annual spring meeting at an upscale hotel along the Las Vegas strip. Many prefer Cruz over Trump, but few were excited about either candidate.
"It's not a natural constituency for Ted Cruz, but over time, he's won the war of attrition for some of these folks," said Kellyanne Conway, a Republican operative leading a pro-Cruz super PAC. "He's seen as the alternative to Donald Trump for many of these people."
Indeed, there were some vocal Trump supporters among the roughly 500 who attended the weekend gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition, but they were in the minority.
Trump irked Jewish leaders earlier in the year by promising to remain neutral on prospective peace negotiations with the Israelis and Palestinians. And while his speech to a pro-Israel group in Washington last month was well-received, Trump's nativist rhetoric alienates some Jewish leaders who "are scared by the concept of Donald Trump and the presidency," said Republican Jewish attorney Charlie Spies.
"No American politician should be compared to Hitler because of the unique, horrific nature of the Nazi genocide," said Spies, a former Jeb Bush supporter. "Having said that, there is an issue of tone and being able to whip up crowds, often directed at segments of society that get scapegoated. Anybody who has studied history would be concerned watching that."
Trump is the least popular Republican presidential candidate among America's registered Jewish voters, according to a poll commissioned by the Republican Jewish Coalition and shared privately with board members over the weekend. The poll found that Ohio Gov. John Kasich was the overwhelming favorite Republican, while Cruz fell in the middle.
Jewish voters represent roughly 3 percent of the American electorate, but have larger populations in swing states like Florida and Ohio.
Both Trump and Kasich declined invitations to attend the annual event, considered a can't-miss for GOP candidates in recent years. Part of the reason: billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a key member who hosts the event at his Venetian hotel resort, was the top political spender in the last presidential race, pouring $90 million of family money into that campaign.
Trump and Kasich spent the day instead in New York ahead of the state's April 19 primary election. There was little sign of Trump or Kasich representatives, but Cruz sent most of his senior team to the Las Vegas hotel. The list included campaign manager Jeff Roe, pollster Chris Wilson and its chief Jewish liaison, Nick Muzin. Pro-Cruz outside groups that can take unlimited contributions hosted simultaneous events in the same hotel to land donations.
At least two former presidential candidates Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry were on hand as well, in addition to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson.
Adelson hasn't been willing to place a bet in this year's unpredictable Republican presidential contest, sending mixed signals about his candidate preference. Yet Cruz's status as the only candidate to make the trip to Las Vegas on Saturday was noticed.
"All three candidates were invited to attend our group today, but Sen. Cruz was the only one to accept our invitation," said RJC board member Michael Epstein as the crowd applauded.
At least one dog killed in a massive house fire on Saturday afternoon in Rehoboth, Massachusetts.
According to affiliate WJAR, fire officials responded to a fire at 164 Summer St. just before 4:45 p.m. Although the residents were not home during the fire, two dogs were inside the home.
Although the remains of only one of the dogs was found, officials believe both perished in the fire.
The cause of the fire has not yet been identified.
Police say the house is a total loss, and the residents are currently displaced.
The longtime executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation who successfully lobbied for tax cuts in Massachusetts has died. Barbara Anderson was 73.
CLT Communications Director Chip Faulkner told the Boston Globe that Anderson died Friday of leukemia.
Anderson is remembered for backing Proposition 2 , which capped property tax increases to 2.5 percent of fair market value. It overwhelmingly passed in November 1980, less than four months after Anderson took the helm at CLT, in Marblehead.
She joined CLT in 1977 as a volunteer, inspired by her then-husband's opposition to a ballot initiative backing a graduated income tax. She was hired in 1978.
Anderson grew up in St. Mary's, Pennsylvania, and briefly attended Penn State.
She is survived by a son, two grandchildren and her partner, Chip Ford.
Police released dashcam footage of a car whose driver was arrested on drunk driving charges early Saturday morning in Upton, Massachusetts.
It's a scary look at who we are sometimes sharing the roads with, and how police crack down on alleged drunk drivers.
The footage shows a car on the wrong side of the road around 1:30 a.m. The officer begins following the car after it makes an stop at an intersection of Milford Street.
After the officer turns his lights on, at some point, the driver ventures back on to the right side of the road, even remembering to use his blinker.
Upton's Police chief told necn this is the department's third OUI arrest this week, and that less than a year ago, there was a serious drunk driving crash near that intersection that injured a family of four.
Upton Police
The driver, 26-year-old Christian Cugini of Hopedale, was arrested and charged with OUI, speeding and a lane violation. He was released on bail and will be arraigned Monday in Milford District Court.
Later Saturday, another suspect was charged with an OUI in Upton after a car went off the road and into the mud.
Upton Police
A two-alarm house fire that displaced three people broke out in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts.
Tyngsborough Police and Fire Departments arrived at 57 Mascuppic Trail, the scene of the fire, at 1:30 p.m. Firefighters put out the fire by 6 p.m. Dracut, Lowell, Chelmsford, Westford and Nashua, New Hampshire fire departments assisted at the scene and covered the Tyngsborough fire station. The Red Cross also provided assistance.
Although no one was injured, three inhabitants are displaced from the house due to the severity in damages. Cost estimates of the damage are not available at this time.
Chief Richard D. Howe praised the quick response of the Tyngsborough emergency responders, and thanked the assisting fire departments.
Officials are actively investigating the origin and cause of the fire.
A teenage girl was killed and three others were seriously injured in a one-car rollover crash Saturday night in Weymouth, Massachusetts.
A memorial is growing at the scene on Union Street where four teenagers were in a car that rolled and hit a telephone pole, causing it to snap in half.
Two of the passengers were ejected from the vehicle before it continued onto the lawn of a Weymouth resident, hitting two parked cars.
All four occupants were taken to South Shore Hospital in serious condition. One of them,15-year-old Kate McCarthy, later died from her injuries.
Steve Rodriguez, the homeowner whose lawn the accident ended in, is a Boston firefighter, but says he's still in shock.
"It's crazy. On my job I see this all the time, but it's the same all the time, like, what were you thinking?" he said.
All day Sunday, friends were bringing flowers to the scene. They say it feels unreal.
"You never really saw her sad," Cameron Dean, a friend of McCarthy, said. "She was generally an upbeat person. Everyone, you could tell, wanted to be around Kate. No one really had anything bad to say about her."
"Her smile lit up the room and her laugh filled it," said McCarthy's friend, Sarah Green. "We're all going to miss her so much."
McCarthy was a student at Archbishop Williams High School in Braintree. The school issued a statement mourning her death.
"As a Catholic community of faith, we are deeply saddened by the serious automobile accident that occurred last night involving four of our students," the statement read. "One of the students succumbed to her injuries. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family."
The school was open until 5 p.m. Sunday for students to come for support and speak with on-site counselors, according to Prinicipal Michael Volonnino. A prayer service was also scheduled at the school's auditorium for 1:30 p.m. Monday.
The superintendent of Weymouth Public Schools says that since several of the teens involved in the crash have attended their schools in earlier grades, there will be additional counselors on Monday.
At this point, police believe the other three teens will survive.
No charges were filed Sunday. The accident is still under investigation.
The body of a Maine woman who was previously missing has been found by the Pasco County Sheriff's Office in Florida, according to necn affiliate WSCH.
Judith Therianos, from the Alfred area, had been officially missing since March 14.
Officers found her remains Thursday evening in a wooded area of Florida, near 6633 U.S. Highway 19.
Therianos and a friend were allegedly visiting friends in Florida. It is believed that Therianos visited two other friends in Tampa and then the Port Richey area, before she went missing.
The cause and date of Therianos' death have not been released yet. This is a developing story.
Officials at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire have released a letter addressing sexual misconduct allegations, which has resulted in police opening cases to investigate claims of misconduct by at least two former and current faculty members.
The letter, which was released Saturday, was emailed to the prep school's parents and alumni after it revealed a former teacher admitted to sexual misconduct in the 1970s.
The elite prep school said it's working closesly with Exeter police and are forwarding all allegations to them.
"As those charged with the stewardship of the Academy, the Trustees accept responsibility and are deeply sorry that this has happened," Principal Lisa MacFarlane and Trustee President Eunice Panetta said in the letter.
A law firm has also been retained by the school to investigate allegations; however, the prep school did not reveal the name of the law firm.
Late March, Phillips Exeter Academy announced that Rick Schubart, who taught history for 38 years, admitted to sexual misconduct after being forced to retire in 2011 and banned from campus in 2015 when the school received reports.
Exeter police say their ongoing investigation has resulted in more reports by alumni, and that they've added extra staff to investigate each claim.
Authorities say the suspect in a deadly shooting in Massachusetts has turned himself in.
Essex district attorney's office says 19-year-old Justice Galarza of 28 Beckford St., Beverly, has been charged with murder.
Officers responded to a shooting at a residence on Ropes Street around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, where they found a 21-year-old man who had been shot in the chest.
The victim, whose name has not been released, was taken to Beverly Hospital, where he died.
Galarza later turned himself in to Salem police, according to the DA.
The DA says Galarza and the victim knew each other.
Galarza will be arraignment Monday in Salem District Court.
Bishop of Norwich backs Archbishop Justin Welby Bishop of Norwich backs Archbishop Justin Welby
The Bishop of Norwich has today given his support to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, after a DNA test revealed the true identity of the Archbishops biological father. Keith Morris reports.
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As a pre-vet student studying zoology, Lara Colombo has an interest in parasites. So she was intrigued to collect ticks on Candlers Mountain with an eventual goal of testing them to see if any carry pathogens that cause lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever or ehrlichiosis.
She and fellow student Heather Stanley presented their ongoing work recently at Libertys Research Week, which combined undergraduate and graduate research symposia for the first time.
The event was the symbolic kickoff for efforts tied to Liberty Universitys new five-year Quality Enhancement Plan, a requirement related to the schools accreditation through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Committee on Colleges (SACSCOC).
The school is calling the plan Illuminate: Cultivating a Community of Research and starting work to spread the word about it to students.
The tagline is develop, design, disseminate. Liberty wants to help undergraduate students develop general skills and knowledge needed for research, design appropriate research projects, and then to share those projects with the larger community.
Several pieces of the plan already are in motion. Last spring saw the establishment of the Scientific Research Society in the biology and chemistry department, a group that encourages students to mentor each other as researchers and helps interested students to get to know faculty who are doing scientific research. Liberty plans to give out grant money to help other departments start similar societies and also has purchased some new Adobe technology to aid presentation of student research work.
The biggest piece of the plan will be revamping curriculum and training faculty on that revamped curriculum. Many of the details of just how that will take place still need to be worked out, and Liberty is in the process of getting feedback on its plan from SACS.
In general, the idea is to expose students to the basics of how to do research early on in their time at Liberty, and then set them up to successfully design and disseminate their own projects in later undergraduate years.
Elisa Rollins, the former associate dean for research and customer service at the Jerry Falwell Library, is now spearheading the Quality Enhancement Plan. She is the director of the universitys new Center for Applied Research & Scholarship, which will guide the curriculum changes.
She might be a familiar face to some people in the Lynchburg area outside of Liberty, due to past positions at the Bedford and Lynchburg public libraries.
A librarian is uniquely gifted to lead this effort, said Carey Roberts, associate dean of the college of arts and sciences and chairman of the history department. She is going to serve as the primary interpreter across a lot of different fields. She is, in effect, going to be our research diplomat.
Rollins said Liberty is looking at rolling out curriculum changes and faculty training one school at a time, starting with the School of Health Sciences. She said she thinks that school has a head start when it comes to laying the basis for research, so Liberty is looking to lay some groundwork there, and then start in earnest to expand and adapt the model to other schools within the university.
Libertys Quality Enhancement Plan corresponds to a trend in higher education related to emphasizing skills that apply across the curriculum. A recent Chronicle of Higher Education highlights that trend via the Quality Enhancement Plan at Emory University in Atlanta, which focuses on helping students understand how to use and judge evidence.
Liberty University Vice President for Academic Affairs & Provost Ronald Hawkins said the plan focuses for now on on-campus undergraduate students. He wants to see students learning, within their various majors, how to select a good question, explore that question in a meaningful way, and share what theyve found. That end product could be a research paper, a professional work product, or even a work of art.
Education really should bring you through that process, he said. That crosses disciplines. If students arent prepared to do that, then golly, they spent a lot of money, for what?
Colombo and Stanley have been having some interesting adventures as they work to design and implement their research project on ticks.
Their first challenge, of course, has been collecting the ticks.
We tested various methods, but what we stuck with was our CO2 chamber, Colombo said.
Basically, thats a trap made with dry ice in a foam box, with holes for the ticks to get in, and sticky material to make them stay. Its one of a variety of ways other researchers have used to get ticks.
The dry ice lets off carbon dioxide, just like a breathing person or animal would, and that attracts ticks, especially the aggressive Lonestar ticks, Colombo said. Stanley led a test of different kinds of tape to see which was the stickiest, and thus best for keeping hold of ticks that head into the trap. Professor Davis McGuirt, the School of Health Sciences faculty member involved with project, has also been helping with trap setting and collecting.
Colombo is now working to get more ticks and removing the ticks salivary glands with the help of a dissecting microscope. A trickier part comes down the road, when the researchers will need to extract and analyze DNA found in the salivary gland to screen for DNA specific to the bacteria.
Her hope is that the project will continue in the future, so year-to-year comparisons can be made about the presence or absence of these pathogens in the local ticks.
Like I said, I want to be a veterinarian, so I love the research aspect of it, Colombo said. I think its really fascinating, just knowing whats out there, because I do look forward to being able to treat animals for these diseases.
'He Had the Chance to Go in
and Save the Children'
(Newser) A man who took a video of himself after starting a fire that would go on to burn more than 150 square miles of land was sentenced to 20 years in prison and a $60 million fine, the AP reports. According to Reuters, Wayne Huntsman pleaded guilty to three counts of arson Friday for starting the 2014 King Fire in Northern California that took hundreds of firefighters a month to get under control. His sentence was increased because a number of firefighters were injured and 12 homes and dozens of other structures were destroyed. Thousands of residents were displaced by the fire. Huntsman originally pleaded not guilty to the charges.
In September 2014, a retired firefighter picked Huntsman up escaping the area of the blaze, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Huntsman showed the man a video of himself standing between two fires. "Listen, I got fire all around me," Huntsman says in the video. "I'm stuck in the middle, babe." The man made a recording of the video and turned it over to the authorities, who arrested Huntsman within days. The DA says Huntsman was trying to look like a hero in the video, but it appeared the fires were purposefully set because there were two of them and Huntsman seemed to be enjoying himself. Meanwhile, Huntsman's sister is accused of killing two young children, whose bodies were found in a storage locker in Redding, California, according to SFist. (Read more wildfires stories.)
(Newser) The Brussels attackers initially planned a second assault on France, but were "surprised by the speed of the progress in the ongoing investigation" and "urgently took the decision to strike in Brussels," the Federal Prosecution Office said Sunday, per CNN. Investigators found intimate links between the cell behind the Brussels attacks and the group that killed 130 in Paris, reports the AP. Sunday's statement confirms that the raids and arrests in the week leading up to the Brussels attacksincluding the capture of key Paris fugitive Salah Abdeslampushed the killers to action. Belgian authorities detained four men in Brussels raids Friday who were charged with participating in "terrorist murders" and "activities of a terrorist group" in relation to the Brussels attacks. One, Mohamed Abrini, has also been charged in the Paris attacks.
Abrini has been identified as the "man in the hat" spotted with the two bombers who blew themselves up at Brussels Airport. Surveillance footage has also placed him in the convoy with attackers headed to Paris ahead of the Nov. 13 massacre. Abrini was a childhood friend of Salah and Brahim Abdeslam, both suspects in the Paris attacks, and had ties to Abdelhamid Abbaoud, the Paris ringleader who died in a raid shortly after. Brahim Abdeslam blew himself up in Paris while Salah Abdeslam was arrested in Brussels on March 18four days before the attacks thereafter a four-month manhunt. Abrini's fingerprints and DNA were not only in a Renault used in the Paris attacks but also in a Brussels apartment used by the airport bombers. Abrini was also believed to have traveled to Syria, where his younger brother died in 2014. (Read more Brussels attack stories.)
(Newser) NASA's Kepler spacecraft is roughly 75 million miles from Houston and has a bit of a problem: The space agency says that its exoplanet-hunting craft is in emergency mode, a status engineers discovered Thursday, reports CNN. "Emergency mode is the lowest operational mode and is fuel intensive," per a NASA statement, and distance only complicates the task of trying to fix Kepler. "Even at the speed of light, it takes 13 minutes for a signal to travel to the spacecraft and back." NASA has declared an emergency, which gets priority access to communications on its Deep Space Network. Kepler was about to point toward the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, notes Tech Times; it was last reported functional on Monday. (Read more Kepler spacecraft stories.)
(Newser) Ukraine's embattled prime minister announced Sunday that he is resigning, opening the way for the formation of a new government to end a drawn-out political crisis. In his weekly televised address, Arseniy Yatsenyuk said his resignation would be formally submitted to parliament on Tuesday, reports the AP. Yatsenyuk's Cabinet survived a no-confidence vote in February, but two parties left the governing coalition to protest the failure to oust the prime minister, who is under fire over the worsening economy and slow pace of reforms.
The withdrawal deprived the coalition of its majority in the Ukrainian parliament. If lawmakers fail to form a new coalition and unite behind a new prime minister, that may lead to early elections, which President Petro Poroshenko has sought to avoid for fear of further destabilizing the country. "From today I see my goals as broader than the powers of the head of the government," Yatsenyuk said. He said he would focus on passing a new electoral law, enacting constitutional and judicial reform, and ensuring "the coalition's control over the course of a new government." (Read more Arseniy Yatsenyuk stories.)
(Newser) President Obama is guaranteeing that evidence, not politics, will dictate the outcome of the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's handling of emails as secretary of state. Obama's comments came on Fox News Sunday, his first appearance as president. Obama said he believes Clinton didn't jeopardize America's national security with her private email server, but he added that "there's a carelessness in terms of managing emails" that she has recognized. Obama said no one has suggested that Clinton's handling of government emails detracted in any way "from her excellent ability to carry out her duties." When asked specifically whether he can guarantee that Clinton will "not be in any way protected" during the course of the investigation, Obama said he maintains a strict line about not talking to FBI directors about pending investigations.
"I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI, not just in this case, but in any case," Obama said. Other highlights from the interview, per the AP:
On Merrick Garland's nomination: Obama said he will stick with him through the end of his term. "What I think we can't have, is a situation in which the Republican Senate simply says, 'Because it's a Democratic president, we are not going to do our job, have hearings, and have a vote.' "
Obama said he will stick with him through the end of his term. "What I think we can't have, is a situation in which the Republican Senate simply says, 'Because it's a Democratic president, we are not going to do our job, have hearings, and have a vote.' " On terrorism: Obama doesn't think Americans have made too much of the threat of terrorist attack. He also said he hasn't let acts of terror disrupt some of his regular activities because it's important to communicate a message of resilience and "that we don't panic, that we don't fear."
Obama doesn't think Americans have made too much of the threat of terrorist attack. He also said he hasn't let acts of terror disrupt some of his regular activities because it's important to communicate a message of resilience and "that we don't panic, that we don't fear." On what he most looks forward to when leaving office: "Being able to take a walk outside."
"Being able to take a walk outside." On his best and worst day in office. Obama said the best was the day health insurance reform passed; the worst was the day he traveled to Newtown, Conn., after the massacre at Sandy Hook.
(Read more President Obama stories.)
(Newser) One thing John Kerry won't do while visiting Hiroshima: say he's sorry. On Monday, the Secretary of State plans to visit a memorial and museum commemorating victims of the atomic bombing that left more than 100,000 dead in 1945but a senior US official says there will be no apology for the attack, the Wall Street Journal reports. "If you are asking whether the secretary of state came to apologize, the answer is 'no,'" the official tells reporters, per Reuters. "If you are asking whether the secretary and I think all Americans and all Japanese are filled with sorrow at the tragedies that befell so many of our countrymen, the answer is yes."
The Japanese haven't asked for an apology, adds the official, who says both sides want visits to the memorial and museum to be "forward looking." Some in Japan have said the US owes them an apology, but many Americans say that's unfair considering the circumstances in World War II. Kerry will be there to meet with fellow foreign ministers from the other Group of Seven nationsJapan, Italy, Germany, France, Canada, and Britain. Japan started the meeting on Sunday by calling for the end of all nuclear weapons, the Guardian reports. (Read more Hiroshima stories.)
While Neanderthal DNA resides in humans, researchers recently discovered that Neanderthal Y-chromosome genes somehow disappeared from the human genome.
It's not complete goodbye to the Neanderthals, for their DNA still lives within us. However, it is only now that experts have discovered that Neanderthal Y-chromosome genes vanished from the human genome aeons ago.
Earlier, research showed that the DNA of modern humans ranges from 2.5 to four percent of that belonging to Neanderthals, mainly because modern humans were breeding with them almost 50,000 years ago. Researchers now want to see what DNA was inherited.
The Y chromosome is just one of two human sex chromosomes that was passed on to the offspring. Better understanding of the Neanderthal Y chromosome may enable them to comprehend when they bred with humans.
Scientists find that Neanderthal Y chromosome DNA was not transferred to modern humans when they interbred.
There are various theories as to why that happened. Maybe Neanderthal Y chromosome genes simply "drifted out of the human gene pool by chance" over the vast millennia. Or perhaps Neanderthal Y chromosomes included genes incompatible with other human genes. Scientists found that Y chromosome genes that are different in Neanderthals were part of transplant rejection when males donated organs to women.
"The functional nature of the mutations we found suggests to us that Neanderthal Y chromosome sequences may have played a role in barriers to gene flow, but we need to do experiments to demonstrate this and are working to plan these now," said Carlos Bustamante, one of the researchers of the new study.
A number of Neanderthal Y chromosome genes that are different from those in humans are part of the immune system. Three of these are "minor histocompatibility antigens," or H-Y genes. It is possible that a woman's immune system may assault a male fetus that carries Neanderthal H-Y genes, which would lead to miscarriage. This would explain the absence of Neanderthal Y chromosomes today.
The study helps us to understand human as well as Neanderthal evolution.
The findings were published in the April 2016 issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics.
Social networking giant Facebook is getting Facebook Messenger more aptly designed to cater not just purely messaging concerns for personal convenience but also to make it as an efficient communication and management tool for businesses.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the Silicon Valley giant is expected to announce a whole lot of enhanced features for commerce in its widely used chat app, the Messenger. Insider reports indicate that chatbot technology will be utilized to streamline business processes and communication such ordering goods and services online.
The event will also marked the second time the Messenger received spotlight at the said conference which suggests that the app is relatively a growing segment within Facebook's increasingly diverse social networking complex.
Why is Facebook keen on adding chatbots and other live chat APIs on Messenger?
Chatbots could be an alternative to 1-800 toll free numbers. According to Tech Crunch, most businesses simply do not have the technological expertise to create chatbots from scratch. What Facebook offers to its business clients is to provide them with chatbots and Live Chat web plug-ins so they can have an automated message response systems to their customers in what is termed as 'Structured Messages' that include a product/service title, picture, description, URL link, and a call to action button like heading to the business' official website, making an e-commerce order, or doing an online restaurant reservation.
There's just a tremendous amount of opportunities for the Messenger as some analysts observe. The mobile messenger app's foray into business has just started last year despite being around for nearly five years now. So far, about two dozen partners including Dutch Airlines and KLM Royal has pretty much integrated Messenger Business to their customer service strategy.
According to latest News Factor roundup, the chat app currently has a 900-million active user base sending more than a billion messages between businesses and individuals.
In what was supposedly hoped as the first successful uterus transplant in the US has now been discarded as failure after the 26-year-old patient developed a yeast infection prompting surgeons to remove the organ off the new host just weeks after the surgery.
Doctors at Cleveland Clinic indicated that the said infection compromised the patient's blood supply which made the organ removal extremely necessary. Despite the failed transplant, patient Lindsey McFarland vowed to try another way to get pregnant preferably through IVF.
"Preliminary results suggest that the complication was because of an infection caused by an organism that is commonly found in a woman's reproductive system. The infection appears to have compromised the blood supply to the uterus, causing the need for its removal," the clinic's official statement reads as quoted by ABC News.
According to a report by New York Times, the infection was blamed on a yeast fungus called Candida Albicans that normally co-exists in balance with other bacteria found in the vagina. However, the balance can be disrupted in the event of an illness or medication leading to possible yeast overgrowth. The doctors explained that the yeast inhabiting the genital tract may have possibly come from the donor as the transplant not only includes the uterus but also vaginal tissues from the donor.
As a result of the failed transplant, Cleveland Clinic is bound to extract important lessons from such experience and pore over the details of the case to prevent similar failed transplants in the future.
"There is an ongoing review of all the data and the team is modifying the protocol to reduce the chances of this complication occurring again in the future. The health of our patient is and has always been our primary concern," the clinic's further statement reads as quoted by Daily Mail.
Sanders recalled that tears flowed down his face when he learnt that most of his father's family had been killed in the Holocaust. At Harlem's Apollo Theater, he was addressing a forum on race and social justice issues as per cbsnews.
Such hatred built on the color of someone's skin or accent is "grotesque and awful" he noted. He knew right from boyhood that he wanted to spend his life fighting hatred and systemic racism.
"Love always trumps hate," Sanders said.
His forum had other members, including entertainer and activist Harry Belafonte, ex-Ohio state senator Nina Turner and Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, a Staten Island man who had succumbed after being put in a chokehold by an NYPD officer.
While addressing the audience, Sanders had begun to take questions from the audience. One of the persons from the audience had asked a number of things about Judaism.
"As you know, Zionist Jews -- and I don't mean to offend anybody, alright?" said the man, later identified by the New York Times as John Prince. "They run the Federal Reserve, they run Wall Street, they run every campaign."
His question set off the crowd into a boo, when Prince asked Sanders, "What is your affiliation to your Jewish community? That's all I'm asking."
"I am proud to be Jewish," said Sanders, even as the crowd applauded. He said that he was a "strong defender of Israel, but I also believe that we have got to pay attention to the needs of the Palestinians."
He has not talked much about his Jewish identity while campaigning. He said he finds it "uncomfortable" to talk about himself.
Sanders and Clinton have been on a campaign in New York over the past few days. They are seeking to win over voters before the Empire State's primary is held on April 19.
"If we can win here in New York State, it will be a huge step forward," Sanders said Saturday.
Mohamed Abrini has been identified as the "man in the hat" who escaped Brussels attacks last month. There were three accomplices who "suicide bombed" the airport as well as a subway, L'Echo reported.
Belgium Saturday accused four suspects who were thought to be part of the March terrorist bombings in Brussels, the Associated Press reported. Those who were taken over by the cops included fugitives from 2015's Paris attacks and another Swedish national, who was also involved in it.
Belgium's Federal Prosecution Office charged the two prime suspects, Mohamed Abrini and Osama Krayem, who were part of a European Islamic State group terror cell slaying 130 in Paris in November and 32 in Brussels. They also accused Herve B. M. and Bilal E. M. They were all part of "terrorist murders". However, two other suspects who had been taken into charge were released by the courts.
Krayem too has been taken under suspicion of having carried out the Paris attacks. He was said to be caught on security cameras in Brussels on the spot, where the airport bombers bought their bags.
Belgium's second-highest terror alert is still reigning. The authorities have been under severe criticism in the national media for not acting on earlier leads, almost forcing the interior and justice ministers to submit their resignations.
A week earlier, Belgian cops halted an anti-racism protest, taking charge of at least two dozen protesters at Brussels' Bourse square.
The government has banned protests as part of a moratorium on group demonstrations. The cops and soldiers have been breaking up protests by Belgians all over the country and the political spectrum.
Brussels:
Paris attacks suspect Mohamed Abrini has confessed to being the man in the hat caught on video with suicide bombers at Brussels airport last month, images that had sparked a massive manhunt.
Abrini made the admission yesterday, on the day he was charged with terrorist murders over the November attacks in Paris which left 130 people dead, prosecutors said.
Terror suspect Osama Krayem, a Swedish national, received the same charges over his role in a suicide bombing at a Brussels metro station on March 22, which occurred an hour after the airport blasts. A total of 32 people died in the coordinated attacks.
The latest arrests strengthened the theory that the same cell carried out both France and Belgiums worst-ever terror outrages, claimed by the Islamic State group.
The pair were among six arrested in raids across Brussels on Friday. Two were later released but the two others were charged with complicity for allegedly helping Abrini and Krayem.
The judge leading the Belgian investigation into the November 13 Paris attacks charged Abrini with participation in the activities of a terrorist group and terrorist murders, the federal prosecutors office said in a statement.
The Belgian of Moroccan origin was the last known Paris suspect still at large. He had been spotted on CCTV cameras at a petrol station north of Paris two days before the attacks there. In the car with him was fellow Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam, who is now awaiting extradition from Belgium to France. Prosecutors also confirmed Abrinis connection to the Brussels airport attack.
The 31-year-old confessed his presence at the crime scene when they confronted him with evidence, including footage of a mystery man in a hat and light-coloured jacket seen next to the two suicide attackers as they walked through the departure hall pushing trolleys loaded with bomb-filled bags.
He is indeed the third man present at the Brussels national airport attacks, they said in a statement. He explained having thrown away his vest (jacket) in a garbage bin and having sold his hat afterward.
The airport images had triggered a furious manhunt for the so-called man in the hat, who swiftly became one of Europes most wanted men.
Police stepped up the search on Thursday when they released a video tracing the fugitives escape route after the blasts and appealed for the publics help in identifying him.
The new footage showed the suspect fleeing the airport and making his way on foot back to central Brussels, appearing calm and composed, before surveillance cameras lose track of him.
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New Delhi:
The Supreme Court has expressed concern over the delay in setting up a State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) in the national capital and asked the government why it was taking so long.
A bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur asked Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar to seek instructions from the Centre on a contempt petition filed by Indu Prakash Singh.
The petitioner contended that despite Delhi government completing the formalities and sending recommendation to the Lieutenant Governor, the Centre has not done anything till date.
Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, appearing for the petitioner, said the delay was on the part of Centre as the recommendation to set up the SHRC has already been sent by Delhi government to the LG.
The apex court last year had questioned why the SHRC had not been set up in Delhi and also directed Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Tripura and Nagaland to set up SHRCs. During the hearing, the bench enquired whether the northeastern states have complied with the direction to set up SHRCs.
To this, Gonsalves said he was not aware of the situation there, to which the bench said you must not neglect the northeastern states.
The court in July last year had rejected the state governments plea that setting up SHRCs was not mandatory for them. It had said, The significance of human rights and the need for their protection and enforcement is beyond the pale of any debate.
Jammu:
The Pakistan Army today violated the ceasefire by opening fire in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir, drawing retaliation from Indian troops. The Pakistan Army resorted to unprovoked ceasefire violation in Poonch sector, Defence spokesman Lt Col Manish Mehta said. He said the Pakistan Army violated the ceasefire in Shahpur area of Poonch sector by firing with automatic weapons at 0430 hours.
Our troops have responded appropriately, no casualty or damage to our troops was reported, he said.
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New Delhi:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today termed as heart-rending and shocking the fire at a temple in Kollam and said he is rushing to Kerala to take stock of the situation. Fire at temple in Kollam is heart-rending & shocking beyond words. My thoughts are with families of the deceased & prayers with the injured, he said in a tweet.
I will be reaching Kerala soon to take stock of the situation arising due to the unfortunate fire tragedy in Kollam, he said. The Prime Minister has also asked Health Minister J P Nadda to reach the site of the mishap. At least 83 people lost their lives and 350 others were injured when a fire broke out at a temple in Keralas Kollam district during display of fireworks. The Prime Minister spoke to the Kerala Chief Minister about the mishap.
Spoke to CM Oommen Chandy about the fire at a temple in Kollam. Arranging for immediate shifting of those critically injured via helicopter, he said.
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Cairo:
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Saudi King Salman have agreed to set up a USD 16-billion investment fund and settled a long-standing maritime dispute as the monarch continued his rare visit to the country. A day after Salman announced a plan to build a bridge over the Red Sea to Egypt, the heads of state met at the historic Abdeen Palace in Cairo to oversee the inking of a string of agreements Egypt hopes will help boost its battered economy.
In one of the most high-profile announcements, Cairo yesterday said it had agreed to demarcate its maritime borders with Saudi Arabia, officially placing two islands in the Straits of Tiran in Saudi territory. The 80-year-old Saudi monarchs visit to Egypt has been seen as a clear show of support for Sisi, the former military chief who toppled his Islamist predecessor Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Since touching down on Thursday, Salman and his delegation have announced a slew of investments in Egypt.
A live Egyptian state television broadcast yesterday showed an official announcing the latest agreements, signed by a representative of each country. The two nations agreed to set up a Saudi-Egyptian investment fund with a capital of 60 billion Saudi riyals (USD16 billion), the announcer said, giving no further details. More than a dozen other accords, including a memorandum of understanding to set up an industrial zone in Egypt, were also announced.
Saudi Arabia has been a key backer of Sisi since the overthrow of Morsi, whose Muslim Brotherhood movement was viewed by Riyadh with suspicion. It has since pumped billions of dollars in aid and investment into Egypt. Egyptian officials and media have heaped accolades on Salman, with state television welcoming him to what it called his second countrya country Riyadh views as a cornerstone in its ambitions to be a regional leader against Iran.
But the agreement announced by the cabinet yesterday to settle the dispute over the islands of Tiran and Sanafir provoked an immediate backlash in Egypt, where thousands tweeted a hashtag accusing Sisi of selling the islands. Tiran had historically been a Saudi island leased to Egypt in 1950. Earlier yesterday, Salman paid a visit to the prestigious Al-Azhar mosque.
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Manila:
The Philippine military suffered its largest single-day combat loss so far this year when 18 soldiers were killed in fierce fighting with Abu Sayyaf extremists that also left five Islamic militants dead, including a Moroccan fighter, the military said today.
At least 53 other soldiers were wounded in yesterdays daylong clashes with the Abu Sayyaf militants and allied gunmen in the hinterlands bordering the towns of Tipo Tipo and Al-Barka on Basilan island, regional military spokesman Maj Filemon Tan and other army officials said.
The large combat casualties were reported as the Philippines marked the Day of Valour yesterday to remember Filipino veterans who died in World War II.
Government forces were deployed to kill or capture Abu Sayyaf commander Isnilon Hapilon, who has publicly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and has been hunted for years for his alleged involvement in several terrorist attacks, three military officials said yesterday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak publicly about the military assault.
Washington has offered a reward of up to USD 5 million for information leading to Hapilons capture and prosecution. The Abu Sayyaf militants, many of whom were armed with M203 grenade launchers, apparently managed to reinforce their ranks quickly as the fighting raged and gathered between 100 and 150 fighters, allowing them to inflict heavy casualties on government troops, the officials said.
The fighting lasted for more than nine hours, they said. Among the slain militants was a Moroccan, who was identified as Mohammad Khattab, and a son of Hapilon, Tan said, adding about 20 other gunmen were wounded.
Its the largest single-day government combat loss this year in the south, where the military has been battling Muslim separatist rebels and extremists, and Marxist guerrillas.
Last year, 44 police commandos were killed in clashes with various Muslim insurgent groups in southern Mamasapano town while on a covert mission that was fraught with faulty planning and execution but nevertheless killed a top Malaysian terror suspect in Southeast Asia.
Outrage over the police deaths stalled a peace deal with the largest Muslim insurgent group some of whose fighters got entangled in the fighting.
The Abu Sayyaf was founded in 1991 in Basilan, about 880 kilometres south of Manila. With an unwieldy collective of preachers and outlaws, it vowed to wage jihad, or holy war, but lost its key leaders early in combat, sending it on a violent path of extremism and criminality.
The US and the Philippines have separately blacklisted the Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist organisation for carrying out deadly bombings, extortion, kidnappings for ransom, and beheadings of locals and foreigners, including Christian missionaries in the south.
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New Delhi:
A crane carrying an Air India passenger plane on Sunday lost its balance and crashed near Begumpet airport in Telangana . No casualties have been reported to far.
The flight was empty and was being brought there for training purposes. It was at around 7 am in the morning when the crane lost its balance and crashed on the compound wall of Hitech club near Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam school at the old airport road in Bowenpally.
Soon after the accident, police blocked the old airport road from Bowenpally to Ferozguda for ordinary traffic.
More updates are awaited
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Raipur:
As many as 122 Naxals, including 11 women, surrendered before the police today in the insurgency-hit Sukma district of Chhattisgarh. Sukma Additional Superintendent of Police Santosh Singh told PTI the Naxals surrendered at Dornapal police station in the district.
As many as 51 member of Jan Militia, 33 of Dandakarnya Adivasi Kisan Majdoor Sangthan, 12 of Chetna Natya Manch, a cultural outfit of Maoists, and four members of Adivasi Balak Sangathan surrendered, he said.
The Naxals told police they were tired of the exploitation, discrimination and hollow Maoist ideology and impressed by the governments rehabilitation policy, he said.
The ASP said the Naxals were given consolation amount of Rs 10,000 and will be further facilitated as per the governments surrender policy.
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London:
David Cameron today become the first UK prime minister to make public his tax returns and ordered a new taskforce to probe the Panama Papers in a bid to douse the growing anger over his investment in his late fathers offshore business.
Thousands of protesters carrying placards reading Tories Out and Cameron Must Go marched to Downing Street yesterday demanding Camerons resignation over the Panama Papers scandal.
Under pressure, Downing Street published a document detailing Camerons income and tax payments from 2009-10 to 2014-15.
Cameron, who became the first British leader to document his financial affairs due to the unprecedented move, paid almost 76,000 pounds in tax on an income of more than 200,000 pounds in 2014-15, according to figures released by the prime ministers office.
Cameron, 49, earned 46,899 pounds from his 50 per cent share of rent on the London family home in Notting Hill, the three-page summary of the prime ministers earnings since 2009 showed.
The move came after Cameron admitted in an emotional speech to the Conservative partys spring conference yesterday that he should have handled this better and will learn the lessons from the row.
I know there are lessons to learn and I will learn them, he had said.
Cameron published the six years worth of accounts in an attempt to end speculation about his tax affairs after one of the most difficult weeks of his Premiership.
However, there are further questions over a 200,000 pound gift from his mother, which is being perceived as a move to avoid inheritance tax.
It emerged that his mother transferred two separate payments of 100,000 pounds to his accounts in 2011, allowing the family estate to avoid a potential 80,000 pounds worth of inheritance tax.
British newspapers questioned whether the gifts were an effort to avoid paying inheritance tax on his late fathers estate.
He also announced a new taskforce to investigate tax-dodging allegations which is unlikely to spare him despite the confession.
The force will be led by the HMRC (Her Majestys Revenue and Customs) tax authority and the National Crime Agency. The taskforce will investigate the leaked files to identify clients of the Panama firm suspected of money laundering and tax evasion and publish its findings later this year.
Cameron had been under increasing pressure as he refused to give details of his familys money held offshore in a Caribbean tax haven.
His late father Ian Camerons name is allegedly named in the over 11 million leaked documents from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca that were shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) with 107 media organisations around the world.
According to the Consortium, Ian Cameron used Mossack Fonsecas services to shield profits from his investment fund, Blairmore Holdings Inc, with a series of expensive and complicated arrangements.
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Islamabad:
The recent wave of tremors that have shaken the Hindu Kush regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan may have lasting impacts on the topography of areas as far afield as Islamabad, according to a media report.
The region was shaken on Friday by at least four distinct tremors, ranging in intensity from 3.3 to 5.3, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), the strongest of which was felt in parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa such as Malakand and Swat.
Dawn reported, citing PMD, that two of the quakes originated in the Hindu Kush region, while the other two were located in the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border region.
All of them occurred deep under the earths crust, with at least three of the quakes measuring over 100 km in depth.
Experts say collisions between Indian, Eurasian plates may cause areas like Islamabad to rise over time.
Over 100 seismic events have been recorded in the region over the past six months alone and some rocked the earth like a boat, while most of them passed unnoticed.
Like the four quakes yesterday, the vast majority of these events originated in parts of the Hindu Kush range located in Afghanistan and Tajikistan and were felt as far afield as Islamabad and Lahore.
The region is roughly located on top of the meeting point for the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has termed the Hindu Kush one of the most seismically hazardous regions on earth.
However, nearly all of the recent tremors felt in the region originated deep in the earths crust, nearly 200 km below the surface.
In a report on earthquakes in this region, the USGS noted that the Hindu Kush shares this high-stress configuration with a seismically active area in Colombia, South America.
These two regions have some of the worlds highest rates of deep earthquakes. However, scientists admit that they do not know a great deal about the forces that are in play at such depths.
The USGS has stated that most such earthquakes are caused by tectonic plates rubbing together.
According to a report by the National Geographic Society, the two plates are colliding at a rate of about 1.5 inches a year, pushing up the Himalayan mountain range in the process.
Due to friction along the plate boundaries, the collisions are not smooth or even.
When the rocks finally give way under the strain, the plates jerk rapidly, releasing the energy that causes an earthquake.
With the collision of plates pushing land upwards, nearby regions including Islamabad may gradually end up gaining altitude.
Or conversely, some areas can start sinking too. For example, La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, is sinking lower because mountains around it are rising, Met Office Director General Ghulam Rasul was quoted as saying.
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New Delhi :
The minor boy, who had allegedly run over a 32-year-old man with his fathers Mercedes in north Delhis civil lines area, was today held under charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and sent to juvenile justice home, the police said. He will be produced before the Juvenile Justice Board tomorrow.
The police today also arrested the man who claimed to be the actual driver of the Mercedes at the time of incident but did a volte-face after he got to know that victim Siddharth Sharma was dead.
The driver and the boys father, who was arrested on Friday, were today produced before a city court and they were granted bail. The driver was arrested for the offence under section 203 (giving false information respecting an offence committed) of the IPC.
Meanwhile, the police said that the juvenile, who turned 18 years old day before yesterday, along with his lawyers came to the court to surrender and his advocates moved a bail plea.
The police said that the court refused to grant him bail on the ground that it was a matter of the juvenile justice board (JJB).
Later, a juvenile welfare officer of the Delhi Police apprehended the boy and he was sent to juvenile justice home for a day. He will be produced before the JJB tomorrow.
The incident took place on April 4 when 32-year-old marketing executive Siddharth Sharma was trying to cross a road near Ludlow Castle School and the speeding Mercedes hit him.
A case under IPC sections 304 A (causing death by rash or negligent act), 279 (driving on a public way so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life) and 337 (causing hurt by an act which endangers human life) was lodged.
The boy was apprehended the next day and was released on bail as per legal provisions.
During the later stage of the investigation, the charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, which is cognizable and non-bailable in nature, was slapped and today the boy was apprehended under this charge, DCP (North) Madhur Verma said.
Further, during investigation it emerged that it was not the first offence of rash and negligent driving by this accused juvenile. In the past too he was found driving in a rash and negligent way, thereby causing a road accident with another vehicle, it had said.
Last year, the minor was also challaned thricefor over-speeding in April and June and wrong parking in February.
The boys father, an old-Delhi based businessman, was arrested under Sections 109/304 (abatement to culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of IPC.
There has not been a single step taken by the father of the accused in prohibiting him from taking the vehicle. This is an act of criminal omission, thereby abetting the crime of the said juvenile, a senior police official had said.
The car was being driven at a speed of at least 80 km per hour and Sharma was flung several feet into the air by the impact of the crash and landed around 15 metres away from where he stood.
After the incident, a group of youths stepped out of the vehicle and fled the spot, abandoning the car there.
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New Delhi:
Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom arrived here today on a two-day visit during which he will hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on ways to expand cooperation between the two countries, particularly in areas of trade, investment and maritime security.
The Maldivian President was received at the airport by Minister of Tourism and Culture Mahesh Sharma.
Gayoom is accompanied by a delegation including Minister of Foreign Affairs Dunya Maumoon, Minister of Fisheries and Agriculture Mohamed Shainee and three members of the Maldivian Parliament.
He will hold extensive talks with Modi tomorrow during which they are expected to explore ways to step up bilateral engagement in a range of areas including trade, investment and maritime security, sources said. The two sides would also ink a number of agreements to bolster bilateral engagement.
Gayoom will also call on President Pranab Mukherjee. Amid concerns over militant groups like ISIS attempting to radicalise the citizens of the archipelago nation, Maldives is in talks with India for setting up a bilateral counter-terrorism mechanism.
India and Maldives commemorated 50 years of diplomatic relations last year.
President Gayooms first state visit after assuming office was to India in January 2014. He was among the SAARC leaders who had attended the swearing-in of Modi in May, 2014.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had visited Maldives in November 2014 and again in October 2015 for the India-Maldives Joint Commission which was held after 15 years.
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Chennai:
Trouble is brewing in the former Union Minister G K Vaasan-led Tamil Maanila Congress over its decision to join hands with the DMDK-Peoples Welfare Front.
Senior leaders of TMC, including Peter Alphonse and S R Balasubramaniam, have questioned the decision to align with PWF and termed the move by party chief Vasan as against the goals of the party.
The move to align with PWF is against the goals of the Tamil Maanila Congress, Peter Alphonse told reporters. There are indications that they may consider going back to Congress.
The voice of dissent after an open call by TNCC chief EVKS Elangovan to Vasan-led party to come back home, the Congress party, to which the former Minister said it was not possible as his outfit had gone past a long distance away from the parent party.
The development comes a day after Vasan inked a pact with DMDK-PWF combine which challenges both AIADMK and DMK.
Despite the strong dissent, Vasan while addressing a DMDK-PWF rally in Mamandur did not make any references to it or the action he contemplated.
The development came after a similar rebellion in DMDK, which saw the ouster of the dissenters led by party propaganda secretary V C Chandrakumar.
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Washington:
The Democratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton did not jeopardise national security, but was careless in managing her emails when she was Secretary of State, the US President Barack Obama said today as he promised an independent probe in the controversy.
I continue to believe that she has not jeopardised Americas national security. Now what Ive also said is that -- and she has acknowledgedthat theres a carelessness, in terms of managing e-mails, that she has owned, and she recognises, Obama told Fox News in an interview.
Obama was responding to a question on an ongoing FBI probe into the emails and private email server which Clinton hosted at her home when she served as the Secretary of State in the first term of Obama Administration.
The issue is being used by Clintons opponents and Republican Party as a key tool against her in this election cycle.
Clinton, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, is eyeing to become the first woman president of the US after Obama leaves office in January.
Defending Clinton, the US president said: I also think it is important to keep this in perspective. This is somebody who has served her country for four years as Secretary of State, and did an outstanding job. And no one has suggested that in some ways, as a consequence of how shes handled e-mails, that detracted from her excellent ability to carry out her duties.
Promising an independent probe, Obama said he has not talked with his officials on this as he does not want to interfere in the investigation.
I do not talk to the Attorney General about pending investigations. I do not talk to FBI directors about pending investigations. We have a strict line, and always have maintained it, he said.
I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI, not just in this case, but in any case. Full stop. Period, he said.
Nobody gets treated differently when it comes to the Justice Department, because nobody is above the law, he said.
In her defence, Clinton has said that none of the emails sent over her private server were classified at the time and she has already handed the State Department 52,000 pages of documents relating to her correspondence as US Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013.
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DANBURY Theyve been arriving since January in numbers that have exhausted staff at the Hispanic Center of Greater Danbury.
Ecuadorians, Dominicans, Mexicans, Guatemalans and Colombians previously content with permanent legal status suddenly want to become citizens and claim their right to vote.
We are extremely busy. This is no joke, said Andrea Contreras, the executive director of the Hispanic Center, which has been assisting up to 10 new citizenship applications each week for the past three months. It has been overwhelming for us, and we are surprised how many people want to become citizens.
The local surge in interest in citizenship apparently is part of a larger national trend of Latinos registering to voice their objection one vote at a time to inflammatory comments about immigrants by GOP front-runner Donald Trump.
A record 27 million Hispanics are expected to be eligible to vote this year, in part because of immigrants going through the naturalization process, as they are in Danbury. The other major trend driver is Latino millennials, such as Stephani Figueroa, who is old enough to vote this year in her first presidential election.
I heard about some of the things that Trump said, and I definitely dont like it because we are all working here and we are all part of the community, said Figueroa, 20, the Danbury-born daughter of a Guatemalan immigrant. What he said about immigrants and other nationalities has made him one of the top candidates, just because he is being a racist.
Trumps spokeswoman did not respond to a request on Friday to share his strategy to win the states 280,000 Latino voters in the April 26 Connecticut primary.
Trump has suggested there is no issue after angering Latinos by calling Mexicans criminals and promising to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. At a Feb. 26 debate, Trump noted he won the Nevada primary with Hispanic backing, saying Im doing very well with Hispanics.
Two Latina candidates who are courting support for state office Newtown Democrat Eva Bermudez Zimmerman and Danbury Republican Emanuela Palmares are not so sure.
For every vote he might gain with that negative campaigning, he is going to lose a vote from someone who knows a family who needs immigration reform, said Zimmerman, who is running against the GOPs Rep. Mitch Bolinsky to represent the 106th District.
Palmares, the first Brazilian to run for state office, said Trumps statements clash with the principles of social justice she believes in. Palmares is running to represent the 110th District held by Democrat Bob Godfrey.
I think that whenever you see two extremes being so loud and pulling people apart, it is really the birth of a very diverse middle ground, said Palmares. Its my hope that, from this whole national conversation, we are having that a lot of new leaders are going to be born that are going to strive to make it their lifes mission to find balance.
Hispanic or Latino?
Its clear to Hispanic Center staff this is no ordinary election-year spike in citizenship applications, and Trump is motivating immigrants to mobilize.
Yes, we have had people say that to us, Contreras said. His comments are not just attacking undocumented immigrants, they are attacking everybody.
But in a year when Hispanics as a voting bloc are expected to equal African-Americans in voting power, the details are complicated.
One obstacle to quantifying the impact of immigrants on voting is that the term Hispanic can be misinterpreted. Portuguese-speaking Brazilians, who may identify with immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries as fellow Latinos, dont identify themselves as Hispanics to census-takers, for example.
The Hispanic label gap makes a big difference in Danbury, a city of 83,000, where Hispanics are conservatively thought to be 25 percent of the population. The Brazilian population estimate of 11,000 is widely thought to live outside the census count for Hispanics.
Another difficulty: The 52 percent of Connecticut Hispanics who are eligible to vote in 2016 is skewed because over half of Hispanics are Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens and can vote in primaries but cant vote for the president, said Orlando Rodriguez, an analyst at the Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission in Hartford.
Rodriguez said since local registrars dont track voter registration by ethnicity, the state relies on a formula to approximate Hispanic voter registration, checking registrations against a list of common Hispanic surnames.
Finally, there is the debatable impact of the undocumented population ostensibly a group that should not be able to affect an election because everyone is living under the radar.
The rule of thumb in the Latino community, however, is everyone who cant vote knows someone who can, and everyone who can vote knows someone who cant.
Definitely, I have friends and also family members who want to be able to make a difference but dont necessarily have the opportunity to voice their opinion, said Figueroa, who has not made up her mind who will get her vote for president. That is why I feel it is so important to use my voice to make a difference.
Palmares, the editor of a tri-language newspaper, agrees.
If I ignore you for five years, which really says I dont value you because you cant vote, then how can I expect you to be engaged and know whats going on? Palmares said.
2016 and beyond
The growing number of Latino voters across the country, and their objection to Trumps pledge to build a wall on the southern border and make Mexico pay for it, has made headlines.
A poll conducted in late February by the Washington Post and Univision News found among Hispanic voters:
82 percent want the next president to support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and 43 percent would not vote for a candidate who opposed it;
74 percent find Trumps immigration views offensive;
64 percent gave Trump an unfavorable rating.
At home, Zimmerman said, views about Trump are similar among Latinos.
Its upsetting that somebody who built his business on the backs of minority workers would say something like that, Zimmerman said. To what end is he so desperate to push people aside and treat people like second-class citizens who are working here?
At stake is not only the contribution Latinos in greater Danbury make toward the nomination of major-party candidates, or the election of a new president in November.
Danbury is working to close the gap between established residents and the newest wave of immigrant Americans.
The more involved residents are in civic life, the more integrated they will become in the culture, Palmares said.
The more you become legitimized in your status journey, the more you care about everything around you because now you have increased access to things you didnt have before, she said.
rryser@newstimes.com; 203-731-3342
[April 10, 2016]
StraitsBridge Advisors Named Among "25 Most Promising Business Intelligence Solution Providers 2016" by APAC-CIO Outlook
SINGAPORE and DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, April 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- CFO advisory & business intelligence solutions provider StraitsBridge adds to industry honours in 2016 with recognition within the Business Intelligence Analytics industry -- garnering a new profile in APAC CIO Outlook's special edition, '25 Most Promising Business Intelligence Solution Providers 2016,' published in March 2016.
StraitsBridge has continued to break new ground in Business Intelligence within the past year benefiting its customers through continuing excellence in delivering top-notch solutions. The firm helps financial institutions get the most value from their BI investments, inspiring confidence that they are getting required insights to make informed decisions.
Sanjay Uppal, Founder & CEO of StraitsBridge, said: "Our bespok models and methodologies have continued to deliver superior Business Intelligence solutions. To be recognized among leading BI solution providers by today's industry experts is very rewarding indeed."
Shripad Keni, Head of Business Intelligence & Finance Systems at StraitsBridge, added: "Our top priority is to deliver innovative services that exceed our customers' expectations and help them gain competitive advantage. This recognition is a testament to our team's commitment to maximizing value for client's investments in business intelligence & analytics."
Industry analysts at CIO Outlook praised StraitsBridge for their end-to-end Business Intelligence solutions that help financial institutions formulate effective business strategies. In characterizing StraitsBridge's strengths, they further noted how professionals at StraitsBridge seamlessly bring together their global experience in Financial Services, Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, and Analytics platforms to deliver effective BI solutions.
About StraitsBridge
StraitsBridge delivers advisory & execution services across CFO domain in financial institutions - helping create value and architect transformation for its clients. StraitsBridge's professionals bring their global experience to work with financial institutions to anticipate, illuminate and overcome complex business challenges. In January 2016, StraitsBridge was recognized among '20 Most Promising Enterprise Performance Management Solution Providers 2016' by CIOReview. StraitsBridge has its headquarters in Singapore with additional offices in Dubai & New Delhi.
For more information, visit: http://straitsbridge.com/ and connect with us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Media Contact
Lydia Anuar
+65-6408-0501
[email protected]
[April 10, 2016] BIOS Middle East a CISCO Gold Partner Based in the UAE is Proud to Present the GCC's First CISCO Powered 'Cloud High Performance Technology' Also Known as CloudHPT
DUBAI, UAE, April 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- BIOS Middle East (BIOSME), a leading provider of Cloud and Managed IT services headquartered in UAE announced today that it has achieved an advanced accreditation to provide CISCO Powered Services after completing a rigorous audit of CISCO's Managed Services Program (CMSP). The services include CloudHPT - The GCC's first - Cisco Powered Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) & BIOS Assured - CISCO powered Managed Services. This certification by CISCO recognizes BIOS Middle East and their Cloud Brand CloudhHPT as having achieved an elite level of expertise to sell and deliver cloud and managed services. This audit verifies that services are delivered with enterprise-class reliability, security and support. The advanced designation also recognizes BIOS Middle East's investment and commitment to providing cloud and managed services at Cisco's highest standards to the Middle East. The shared goal is to help businesses and organizations realize faster time to value. "We are delighted to have BIOS Middle East as the first local Master Cloud and Managed services partner in the UAE. With Cloud Services Demand growing at an exponential pace, BIOSME Cisco powered CloudHPT services that are built on local DC offers simple customer interface along with strong 24x7 NOC Services. We are looking forward to develop this partnership and offer new consumption models for our customers, s aid Frida Kleimert, Regional Partner Sales Manager in UAE. "BIOS Middle East has delivered Cloud technologies to many UAE Customers since 2002 and is at the forefront of helping busnesses benefit from cloud services. With the recent launch of the Cisco Powered CloudHPT Services, it can deliver an Enterprise Grade, low latency managed cloud service out of its T4/Tx Data Centers," said Clinton O' Leary, Cloud Lead, CISCO Middle East. "CloudHPT is proving itself to be one of the most innovative and customer-focused Cloud Service Providers in the United Arab Emirates."
"We are delighted that our investment in People, Technology and Process has meant that CISCO recognizes CloudHPT as among its elite partners globally, in addition it is always nice to be first. We will continue to be driven by given our customers the very best platform on which to run and protect their businesses while driving down operational costs and eliminating IT CAPEX requirements," Dominic Docherty CloudHPT CEO. The partnership between BIOS Middle East and CISCO extends into the marketplace as well. CISCO will also actively sell CloudHPT through its own sales channels.
To learn more about CISCO Powered CloudHPT Solutions, visit http://www.cloudhpt.com About CloudHPT: CloudHPT is Cloud provider based out of multiple datacenters in the GCC.
We are the first Certified Cisco Powered Cloud provider in the region for IaaS and DraaS. Our solutions are built on High Performance Technology (hence HPT) and housed in the UAE's best datacenters.
We help our partners give their customers a roadmap to the cloud which generally reduces ongoing IT cost and eliminate future CAPEX expenditure. Typically this approach provides a 50% saving in year one and includes a full migration services and continuing managed service. Typically customers use our in-country cloud for critical workloads to take advantage of the ultra-low latency and in country support and professional services. About the Cisco Cloud and Managed Services Program (CMSP): CMSP helps Cisco partners to envision, build, market, and sell their cloud and managed services. The program offers partners access to an elite level of expertise, business acceleration tools and services, sales training, and presence in the Cisco Cloud Marketplace. Financial benefits include global discounts and incentives to help maximize profitability, build customer loyalty, and differentiate a partner's cloud and/or managed offerings. Three program levels give partners a flexible framework for business growth and the acquisition of new revenue streams. About Cisco Powered: Cisco Powered is the industry standard for cloud and managed services. Based on validated architectures and end-to-end security, Cisco Powered services minimize technology lifecycle complexity to reduce cost and risk. To ensure enterprise-class service, security, and 24/7 support, Cisco partners offering Cisco Powered services must undergo a rigorous certification and third-party audit of their solutions. As the power behind the cloud, Cisco Powered services enable organizations to connect with confidence while achieving faster time-to-value, experiencing assured performance, and leveraging ongoing innovation built on open standards. Nidhi Savla
Group Marketing Manager
CloudHPT
Mobile : +971-504569833
Email : [email protected]
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Some of the worst people we are ever going to meet are Christians. Paul marveled at the Corinthian church: You have such admirable tole...
Some of the worst people we are ever going to meet are Christians. Paul marveled at the Corinthian church: You have such admirable tolerance for impostors who rob your freedom, rip you off, steal you blind, put you down- even slap your face. (2 Corinthians 11:19-20).So tell me, why are you a member of your church? You have been there for thirty-eight years and have still not been healed of your infirmities; yet you remain. You know your pastor is sleeping with a chorister; yet you remain. Every Sunday you are harassed into giving more offering than you would like or can afford; yet you remain.You remain, not for the sake of Christ, but for the sake of men. You remain because of social and soul ties. You remain because your pastor has style. You remain because that was the church your parents went to. You remain because your friends are in the church.You remain because your business associates are in the church. You remain because you have been hoodwinked by another gospel. Why do we receive in our churches the traditions of men? Where does it say in the scriptures that it is a sin to leave your church for another one? Where does it say your tithes cannot be paid to the Motherless Babies Home?Where does it say if a woman wears trousers or earrings she would be disqualified from heaven? Where does it say you have to go to Bible College before you can be baptised? Answer such questions not by reference to your pastors dictates, or by reference to the conventions of your church, but by the word of God.However, the danger is not only from pastors, bishops and televangelists. The danger is also from fellow Christians. David was distressed because his betrayer was a member of his church. In all probability, they were prayer partners, or they might have been members of the same church choir. He said: We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company. (Psalm 55:14). Some of the worst people we are ever going to meet are Christians. They will be the ones who will steal from us and from the church.They will stab us in the back and betray us. Judas was not an unbeliever but a Christian. He was one of the twelve disciples. He preached the gospel. He performed miracles in the name of Jesus. Nevertheless, he was a son of perdition who ended up by betraying the Lord. They are not all Christians who are Christians. There can be unequal yoking even among Christians. Dont get married to that brother simply because he is a Christian. Dont enter into a business partnership with someone simply because he is a prayer warrior in the church. If Jesus can be betrayed so can we. Jesus says: A mans enemies are men of his own household. (Matthew 10:36). This is not just talking about our homes; it is also talking about the church: the household of God. It is not just talking about the church; it is also talking about us.We should beware of ourselves. We should not trust ourselves: we should not trust our hearts because the heart is deceitful. (Jeremiah 17:9). The traitor in mans life can turn out to be his eyes which insist on beholding evil. Pluck it out, says Jesus.It might turn out to be his hands which are employed in doing mischief. Cut it off, says Jesus. It might turn out to be his feet which seem determined to carry him to hell. Amputate them. It might turn out to be his tongue which he uses to curse and abuse. Cut it off. Or it might turn out to be his mind which is lustful. Fill it with the word of God.Beware of Christians who are regular church-goers. It does not mean we are people of integrity. Beware of Christians always quoting scriptures authoritatively.We may not even understand them or believe in what they say. Beware of Christians always asking you for money. We are probably trying to use the gospel to empty your pocket. Beware of Christians who are contemptuous of non-Christians.We are ignorant that Jesus was only critical of Judaism; his own faith. Beware of self-opinionated Christians.We want you to go to hell when you dont share our views. Beware of Christians who insist you must not use your brains in order to walk by faith.We are just trying to put one over on you. Beware of Christians preoccupied with how women should dress.We are controlling and are suffering from lust. Beware of Christians who swear in Gods name. It should tell you immediately we are telling lies. Beware of Christians who say: The devil made me do it. The devil might make us do something to hurt you. Beware of Christians who say after an argument: Ill be praying for you. It means we hate your guts.Beware of Christians passionate about a man-of-God. We are not disciples of Christ. Beware of Christians always with a testimony of yet another blessing. We are only trying to make you insecure. Beware of Christians who call others brother this and sister that. We may be using the brotherhood to pull wool over your eyes.Beware of Christians who always have a word from God for you. We want to be the god of your life.Beware of Christians who often show up when you are having your meal. It means we see you, and not Jesus, as our bread of life.The modern church is full of witches and wizards, all operating as busybodies. They are always looking for negatives, and always pouncing on negativities.If you lose weight they will tell you that you are too thin. If you put on weight they will tell you that you are too fat. Mary, I would not wear big flowing dresses if I were you; you know you are a bit short. Peter, dont you think you should be married by now? Praise the Lord! Religious know-it-alls always know the reason for everything. When they occupy exalted church positions, it makes them very deadly indeed.They reduce the believers relationship with God to formulas. They imply that God can be programmed like a computer. The moment we are sick, or bereaved or jilted, or dismissed from a job, there is a coterie of religious experts who know exactly what is responsible for our adversity and precisely what we must do to get out of it. More often than not, they make copious references to the word of God. But somehow this always makes us feel worse. The scriptures warn that the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.A Christian brother committed adultery. After the act, he became very remorseful. In despair, he went to his pastor and confessed the sin to him. The pastor was outraged. How could you do such a thing? Dont you know those who commit adultery cannot inherit the kingdom of God? The poor man became even more guilt-ridden. In confusion, he reached the wrong conclusion. He left the pastor, went home and committed suicide.
The hope of an early signing of the 2016 Appropriation Bill into law dimmed on Saturday with President Muhammadu Buharis decision to tr...
The hope of an early signing of the 2016 Appropriation Bill into law dimmed on Saturday with President Muhammadu Buharis decision to travel out of the country on Sunday.Buhari will be away from the country for one week as he begins a working visit to the Peoples Republic of China.According to a statement on Saturday by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, the President is due back in the country at the weekend.This is an indication that the budget may not be signed this week except in the unlikely event that he signs it outside the country.The Senate and the House had passed a harmonised budget of N6.06tn on March 23.The Appropriation Bill was forwarded to the Presidency within 24 hours of the passage by the National Assembly.However, Buhari declined to sign the bill, insisting on seeing and reviewing the details ministry-by-ministry before appending his signature.The details had since been made available to the President on Thursday.An expanded session of the Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo was held on Friday to review the details of the budget which the Minister of Information and Culture, Mr. Lai Mohammed, described as work in progress.Meanwhile, no fewer than 10 ministers and some state governors will accompany the President on his visit to China.According to Adesina, the ministers on the Presidents entourage include those of Agriculture; Water Resources; Transportation; Defence; Power, Works and Housing; Industry, Trade and Investment; Federal Capital Territory; Science and Technology and Foreign Affairs.According to the presidential spokesman Buharis trip to China is aimed at securing greater support from Beijing for the development of Nigerias infrastructure.Adesina mentioned specific sectors such as power, roads, railways, aviation, water supply and housing as those that would receive special attention during the visit.
The Central Bank of Nigeria on Saturday said it suspended charter flight agreement with VistaJet, a Swiss charter airline in Nigeria and ...
The Central Bank of Nigeria on Saturday said it suspended charter flight agreement with VistaJet, a Swiss charter airline in Nigeria and other countries, in 2015 following President Muhammadu Buharis administration resolve to cut costs.It said since last year, the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, had stopped flying VistaJets Bombardier luxury private jets.It was gathered that Emefiele and Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, had at various times flown VistaJets upscale private jets and flown in it to the burial of Emefieles mother in Delta State.The immediate past Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, had been severely criticised during the past administration for chartering Vistajets private jets for several months, and accumulating huge sums of bills that could almost reach half of the amount a private jet is sold.Kachikwu on Saturday also said he cancelled the about N600m monthly contract which the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had with VistaJet.The NNPC stated that Kachikwu terminated the contract with VistaJet when he assumed office.Although Kachikwu through the NNPC admitted to using Vistajets private jets, he said the bill was being paid by the International Oil Companies under their joint venture agreement with the NNPC.The CBN, in a statement by its Acting Director, Corporate Communications, Mr. Isaac Okoroafor, on Saturday said, However in 2015, in response to the economic downturn and the cost-cutting stance of the Federal Government, Mr. Emefiele ordered the stoppage of the use of chartered flights by the central bank. Since then, neither Mr. Emefiele nor any of the deputy governors had used the services of private chartered flights and the CBN has not paid a kobo for private jet services.It added, The CBN has, for several years in the past, used private and official chartered flights in making urgent travels to meet needs in remote, not-easily- accessible locations or in cases where timing might be critical to matters of urgent national importance.This practice was in place long before the assumption of office of the current Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele. In fact it is on record that the past two CBN Governors actively used chartered private jet services to meet urgent national assignments.Indeed, in recognition of this critical need in its smooth operations, the CBN had in the 1990s acquired a dedicated jet for this purpose and for urgent currency movement. This was, however, taken over by the military administration when there was a more urgent need for it at the State House.Thereafter, the CBN occasionally used the chartered services of private operators and those of the Presidential Fleet when available, both of which were paid for.NNPC on Saturday also said the cancellation was due to the fact that Nigeria spends $3m every month as a result of the contract.It said, Since the grounding of the NNPC-owned private jet which has been handed over to the Presidential fleet as scrap, Kachikwu has resisted every pressure to procure and maintain another private jet for the NNPC.And even though it is a standard practice in the oil and gas industry, the minister has refused to retain the services of any private jet company.What Kachikwu has done in fact was to cancel an existing contract with VistaJet which he found on assumption of office and which was costing the country $3m every month. By this, Kachikwu has saved the country expenditure that would have run into hundreds of millions of United States dollars.The statement added that the minister had insisted that since the Federal Government, through the NNPC, contributed 60 per cent in the Joint Venture agreements it entered into with international oil companies, then the corporation was entitled to all facilities that were available as part of the operations of the JV agreements.
The Department of State Security (DSS) yesterday confirmed its arrest of Mohammed Usman who is also known as Khalid Al-Barnawi, descri...
The Department of State Security (DSS) yesterday confirmed its arrest of Mohammed Usman who is also known as Khalid Al-Barnawi, described as a founding member of the Jamaat Ahl as-Sunnah lid Dawah Wal-Jihad (Boko Haram) and later the Amir of the break-away faction, Jamaat Ansarul Muslimim Fi Biladi Sudan (JAMBS).He is also said to be the mastermind of the August 26, 2011 bombing of the United Nations building, Abuja.The DSS called his arrest in Lokoja penultimate Friday a major milestone against terrorism.Besides, the agency said it had uncovered the heinous role played by members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), in the abduction/kidnap of five Hausa-Fulani men in Isuikwuato LGA Abia State.It said four of the five abducted persons were subsequently murdered and buried in shallow graves in Umuanyi forest in the state.The DSS in an online statement by its spokesman, Tony Opuiyo, said Al-Barnawi used to move around under various aliases such as Kafuri, Naziru, Alhaji Yahaya, Mallam Dauda and Alhaji Tanimu.It said further of him: Khalid Al-Barnawi is a trained terrorist commander, who has been coordinating terrorist activities in Nigeria, while talent-spotting and recruiting vulnerable young and able Nigerians for terrorist training by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in North African States and the Middle-East.Subject was involved in many terrorist attacks in states of the federation, including Bauchi, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Sokoto and FCT-Abuja; this resulted in the killing and maiming of innocent citizens of this country.Al-Barnawi is also responsible for the bombing of the United Nations building in Abuja, on 26th August, 2011; the kidnapping of two European civil engineers in Kebbi State in May, 2011, and their subsequent murder in Sokoto State; the kidnap of a German engineer, Edgar RAUPACH in January, 2012, the kidnap and murder of seven expatriate staff of Setraco Construction Company at Jamaare, in Bauchi State in February, 2013, the attack of Nigerian troops at Okene in Kogi State, while on transit to Abuja for an official assignment.He would soon be charged to Court to face his charges after investigation is completed. This arrest is a major milestone in the counter-terrorism fight of this Service; this arrest has strengthened the Services resolve that no matter how long and far perpetrators of crime and their sponsors may run, this Service in collaboration with other sister security agencies, will bring them to justice.The DSS named the Hausa/Fulani men allegedly murdered by IPOB members as Mohammed Gainako, Ibrahim Mohammed, Idris Yakubu and Isa Mohammed Rago.It said: The abducted men were later discovered at the Umuanyi forest, Abia State, where they were suspected to have been killed by their abductors and buried in shallow graves, amidst fifty (50) other shallow graves of unidentified persons.Arrest and investigation conducted so far, revealed that elements within the IPOB, carried out this dastardly action. It is pertinent therefore to alert the general public that IPOB, is gradually showing its true divisive colour and objectives, while steadily embarking on gruesome actions in a bid to ignite ethnic terrorism and mistrust amongst non-indigenes in the South-East region and other parts of the country. Following this act, tension is currently rife among communal stakeholders in the State with possibilities of spill over to other parts of country.Against the foregoing, the Service will not hesitate to act decisively within its statutory mandate to ensure that the sponsors and perpetrators of this action are apprehended and prosecuted for their crime.Accordingly, law-abiding citizens are enjoined to go about their civil duties and businesses freely, as efforts are being intensified by security agencies to maintain law and order in the State and across the Federation.IPOB is in the vanguard of the renewed agitation for the emergence of Biafra.Its leader, Nnamdi Kanu is currently facing trial in Abuja for treason.
The Nigerian Army has commissioned its first mega fuel service station built by the Nigerian Army Properties Limited and located along Dr...
The Nigerian Army has commissioned its first mega fuel service station built by the Nigerian Army Properties Limited and located along Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe Road in Western Bypass, Minna.At the opening ceremony held on Friday, President Muhammadu Buhari commended the Nigerian armed Forces leadership for their commitment and zeal in tackling security issues across Nigeria.He also applauded the successes of the Armed Forces in the counter-Insurgency Operations in the north eastern part of Nigeria while urging them to sustain the tempo.The president was represented by the Chief of Defence Staff, General Gabriel Olonisakin.He assured the military that his administration would continue to provide the much needed support to the Armed Forces for efficient service delivery and effective discharge of their responsibilities.The Chief of Defence Staff stated that the noble relationship behind the establishment of the project was quite commendable and legendary, adding that it was part of the current efforts to reposition the Nigerian Army to meet with the contemporary realities.He said that the establishment of the Nigerian Army Properties Limited projects had made the Service optimum utilisation of its human and material assets into profitable business ventures towards improving the welfare and well beings of the Nigerian Armed Forces at large and their families as well as the general populace.He stressed that the Company could also afford the Nigerian Army the opportunity to effectively engage all the arms and services in their various areas of specialisations to enhance service delivery.General Olonisakin also told the gathering that one of the few priorities of the Buharis administration was the enhancement of the capacity of the Armed Forces to discharge their duties effectively.I am therefore particularly glad that this project which is being commissioned today is a step in the right direction. I therefore congratulate the Nigerian Army for this giant stride which is in line with the policy direction of the present administration, he stated.The Presidents representative further assured the military that the government would not relent in providing the much needed support to the Armed Forces for efficient service delivery and effective discharge of their responsibilities.Also, in his remarks at the occasion, the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, said the newly commissioned mega fuel service station was pacesetter in the current drive to reposition the Nigerian Army for contemporary realities.He explained that the project was in line with his vision of having a professionally responsive Nigerian Army in the discharge of its constitutional roles, emphasising that the Service had also diversified attention into areas that would improve the welfare and well-being of the Nigerian Armed Forces personnel, their families and the civil populace.He also thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for his continuous support and for standing solidly behind the Nigerian Armed Forces in combating the insecurity in the northeast.Lt. Gen. Buratai also told the gathering that the Nigerian Armed Forces had made appreciable progress in the fight against terror and implored Nigerian Army personnel to continue to remain professionally responsive and loyal to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.The fuel service station has four pumps for petrol and one each for Diesel and Kerosene including a Supermarket and a Mechanic Workshop.It will operate a 24-hour service daily and the military plans to replicate the project in Enugu, Ibadan, Kaduna, Lagos, Maiduguri, Port Harcourt and Abuja among others.
A businessman, Uba Emmanuel Abraham is entangled in a legal battle with a popular Lagos-based cleric, Pastor Lazarus Muoka of the Lords ...
A businessman, Uba Emmanuel Abraham is entangled in a legal battle with a popular Lagos-based cleric, Pastor Lazarus Muoka of the Lords Chosen Church Inc., over some properties at Jakande Estate, Lagos State and Independence Layout Enugu, Enugu State.Abraham, who accused the Lagos-based popular pastor of falsifying the documents of his (Abrahams) independence Layout property at Enugu, Enugu State, in favour of his church, also alleged threats to his life.But Muoka, through his lawyer, Mr, Obioma Oti, said Abraham had been paid for both properties.Abraham, who hails from Aboh Mbaise Local Government Area of Imo State, said he joined Muokas church in 2005 on his late mothers advice after he returned from Japan.He said his travail began when he decided to leave Muokas church, and he asked Muokas Lords Chosen Church congregation to vacate his (Abrahams) No. 2 Lemon Street house at Phase II, Lagos.It was against this background, according to Abraham, that Muoka allegedly connived with one Ikedi Igbokwe, whom the pastor introduced to Abrahams family as a house boy to give his propertys documents to Muoka while he was away in Japan in 2009.According to Abraham, on his return to the country he had demanded for his propertys documents from Muoka.Abraham further alleged that Muoka, through Oti, denied knowledge and receipt of the documents but requested for N1m to search for them. Abraham claimed he refused to give any money but headed for the court where he swore to an affidavit for the lost documents to authenticate the ownership of his property.Abraham also claimed that Mouka falsified and registered his (Abrahams) Independence Layout, Enugu property with the Enugu State Ministry of Lands in favour of his church after the March 2011 tsunami, thinking he (Abraham) had died in the disaster.But when I came back from Japan and tried to survey and register the property, the fraud was discovered. Confident that the property belongs to me and in a bid to get those behind the fraud, I fenced the property and built a bungalow on it and nobody came out to lay claims to the land, Abraham added.He added that after his relocation to Lagos, the property was pulled down by some youths allegedly sent by Muoka.Abraham said, I invited the police, who arrested the suspects. They confessed they were sponsored by Muoka. The matter had since been taken to court.He noted that he had been under threats from Muoka and his agents since 2011. Sometimes, they would call me for negotiation and then send attackers after me. My life is in danger, he said.Abrahams counsel, Mr. Benjamin Nduka, accused the Lords Chosen Church of trying to avoid appearing in court as neither the church nor her counsel had appeared in court for the two cases.Nduka said since the church was duly served the court summons, he would approach the court with a motion to compel it to appear in court, the only institution with the capacity to adjudicate on such matters.The Divisional Crime Officer at the Independent Layout Police Station Enugu, Mr. Igbochi Igbo, in a text message referred newsmen to the DPO.When contacted, one of Muokas pastors in Lagos, Francis Eze, said he did not know anything about the said property in Enugu.Speaking for Muoka, Oti, said Abraham was paid N2m for the half plot in Jakande Estate, Lagos.He also claimed that Abraham was paid N1.7m for the plot at Enugu eight years ago when there was no form of property development around the area.He said, We fenced the two pieces of land in Lagos and Enugu, but to our greatest dismay, Uba (Abraham) went and demolished the fence at the Independence Layout. We reported the matter to the police and that is why the police are looking for him.Oti said Abraham was trying to drag the image of the church in the mud.He said the church never mandated Abraham to sell his landed property to them, but that Abraham disposed the land when his business in Japan crumbled.Oti said the matter was in court and that he would not like to discuss it in depth.
The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Ife Central State Constituency Dipo Eluwole, has won the by-election conducted to fil...
The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Ife Central State Constituency Dipo Eluwole, has won the by-election conducted to fill the vacant seat at the Osun State House of Assembly.The by election was conducted on Saturday but the Independent National Electoral Commission declared the poll inconclusive because results from two polling units were cancelled and a rerun election was conducted on Sunday.The PDP candidate scored 5,504 votes at the end as the candidate of the Accord Party, Olusegun Fanibe came second with 4,790 votes while the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Tilewa Sijuwade came third with 4,587 votes.The APs candidate, who recently defected from the PDP, put up a strong show in the poll and he also is spoilt the chances of his former party.With the victory, the PDP retains the two seats it earlier won during the general election in. 2015,The seat became vacant following the death of the Minority Leader, Mr. Oladejo Makinde of the PDP on December 27, 2015.
The State Security Service (SSS) in Nigeria announced on Saturday that it has discovered mass graves of Hausa-Fulani residents abducte...
The State Security Service (SSS) in Nigeria announced on Saturday that it has discovered mass graves of Hausa-Fulani residents abducted and murdered by suspected members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB, in Abia State.The agency said IPOB carried out the massacre of people of northern Nigerian origin as part of its efforts to destabilise the country.In a statement signed by its spokesperson, Tony Opuiyo, the SSS said the killing has triggered tension among different communities in Abia State.Although Mr. Opuiyo said five men were killed alongside several other unidentified persons, only the names of four individuals were provided.The Service has uncovered the heinous role played by members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), in the abduction/kidnap of five Hausa-Fulani residents, namely Mohammed Gainako, Ibrahim Mohammed, Idris Yakubu and Isa Mohammed Rago at Isuikwuato LGA in Abia State, Mr. Opuiyo said.The abducted men were later discovered at the Umuanyi forest, Abia State, where they were suspected to have been killed by their abductors and buried in shallow graves, amidst fifty (50) other shallow graves of unidentified persons.Arrest and investigation conducted so far, revealed that elements within the IPOB, carried out this dastardly action, he added.Mr. Opuiyo said he was alerting Nigerians to the divisive and gruesome activities of IPOB operatives, allegedly led by fiery broadcaster, Nnamdi Kanu.Mr. Kanu has been standing trial for treasonable felony since he his arrest on October 17, 2015, after entering Nigeria from the UK where he lives.It is pertinent therefore to alert the general public that IPOB, is gradually showing its true divisive colour and objectives, while steadily embarking on gruesome actions in a bid to ignite ethnic terrorism and mistrust amongst non-indigenes in the South-East region and other parts of the country.Following this act, tension is currently rife among communal stakeholders in the State with possibilities of spillover to other parts of country, Mr. Opuiyo said.In a related development, the SSS has released an update on the recent incarceration of Khalid al-Barnawi, a former Boko Haram leader, in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, describing it as a major breakthrough.This Service wish (sic) to inform the general public that further to its efforts to stem the tide of terrorism in the Country, it has recorded another major breakthrough in the arrest of one Mohammed USMAN, widely known as Khalid al-Barnawi, alias Kafuri/ Naziru/Alhaji Yahaya/Malam Dauda/Alhaji Tanimu.Khalid al-Barnawj was apprehended by this Service on 1st April, 2016, in Lokoja, Kogi State, while hiding under a false cover. Al-Barnawi was a founding member of the Jamaat Ahl as-Sunnah lid Dawah Wal-Jihad (Boko Haram) and later the Amir of the break-away faction, Jamaat Ansarul Muslimim Fi Biladi Sudan (JAMBS).Khalid al-Barnawi is a trained terrorist commander, who has been coordinating terrorist activities in Nigeria, while talent-spotting and recruiting vulnerable young and able Nigerians for terrorist training by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in North African States and the Middle-East.Subject was involved in many terrorist attacks in States of the Federation, including Bauchi, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Sokoto and FCT-Abuja.This resulted in the killing and maiming of innocent citizens of this Country. Al-Barnawi is also responsible for the bombing of the United Nations building in Abuja, on 26th August, 2011; the kidnapping of two European civil engineers in Kebbi State in May, 2011, and their subsequent murder in Sokoto State; the kidnap of a German engineer, Edgar Raupach in January, 2012, the kidnap and murder of seven expatriate staff of Setraco Construction Company at Jamaare, in Bauchi State in February, 2013, the attack of Nigerian troops at Okene in Kogi State, while on transit to Abuja for an official assignment.Meanwhile, subject would soon be charged to Court to face his charges after investigation is completed.This arrest is a major milestone in the counter-terrorism fight of this Service. This arrest has strengthened the Services resolve that no matter how long and far perpetrators of crime and their sponsors may run, this Service in collaboration with other sister security agencies, will bring them to justice.
Because he won't own up to his failings, Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman needs to go
WASHINGTON (AP) The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has issued a subpoena to Donald Trump. The nine-member panel sent a letter to the former president's lawyers on Friday, demanding his testimony under oath by mid-November and outlining a series of corresponding documents. The decision by lawmakers to exercise their subpoena power comes a week after the committee made its final case against the former president, who they say is the "central cause" of the multi-part effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It remains unclear how Trump and his legal team will respond to the subpoena, if at all.
Starting Tuesday, as more than 20 plaintiffs claim convicted sex abuser Dennis Jones and his former employer invaded their privacy and violated their trust, Jones will wait for the verdict from his Texas prison cell.
The civil trial between the plaintiffs versus Jones and Methodist Physicians Clinic will begin with jury selection at 9 a.m. on Tuesday.
Jones will not be able to travel from his cell at the Federal Correctional Institution in Fort Worth, Texas, to appear at his civil trial. He will be represented by attorney Michael Winter.
When the trial begins, according to court documents, the plaintiffs attorneys, Randy and Emily Shanks, will argue that their plaintiffs were long-standing patients of Jones and Methodist Physicians Clinic who trusted the defendants with their health care needs and had confidence that the defendants would not betray that trust relationship.
Additionally, the Shanks will argue that Jones, while an employee of Methodist Physicians Clinic, photographed and videotaped the plaintiffs examinations without their knowledge or consent.
Jones turned himself into authorities on May 20, 2013, on suspicion he had inappropriate sexual contact with a 5-year-old girl. As Council Bluffs police and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation investigated the initial charges, a search of Jones residence led them to child pornography.
During forensic analysis of seized computers, external hard drives and other electronic equipment, law enforcement located an estimated 1.2 million images and 9,200 videos of child pornography, including pornography containing minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
Soon after, the pornography was found, a civil suit was filed against Jones and Methodist Physicians Clinic. According to court records, Randy Shanks filed his petition on May 8, 2014.
Fifteen days after Shanks filed his petition, Jones pleaded guilty to federal charges that he knowingly possessed child pornography that included images of a prepubescent child or children under 12 years of age.
Jones was sentenced on both federal and state charges relating to sexual abuse and child pornography charges.
On April 19, 2014, Fourth Judicial District Court Judge Richard Davidson accepted Jones guilty plea to the state charge of lascivious acts with a child, a Class C felony. Davidson sentenced Jones to the maximum of 10 years in prison, to be served concurrently with a more than 10-year (121-month) federal sentence on child pornography charges. Concurrently means the two sentences will be served at the same time.
Michael Ellwanger, a Sioux City-based attorney, will defend Methodist Physicians Clinic.
When Melissa and Roland Ron Donoho decided to get married, Melissas family was there to help.
The couple has been together 17 years. In January, they learned Ron has a terminal illness.
We thought we better do it now, or well never do it, Melissa Donoho said.
Melissa Donoho is the housekeeping director at Heritage at Fox Run, a Council Bluffs retirement community. Executive director Ron Perry encouraged his coworker to have the wedding at the facility.
Shes a big part of this family here, Perry said. It just made sense.
On March 26, Heritage hosted its first wedding, with a number of Malones coworkers pitching in to help.
Office director Diann Owens did alterations on Malones wedding dress, adding camouflage pieces for the avid hunter. Amber Jones, senior living counselor, made a sheet cake for the event, and her 3-year-old son Taven was ring bearer. Activities assistant Jane Tedesco did Malones hair and makeup.
Cook Phil Hollands sister, Mary Coufal, took photos, while Hollands aunt Andrea Bollig did the hunting-themed wedding cake, replete with a deer bride and groom cake topper. The Heritage home office in Omaha donated the grooms cake.
Were her family, Tedesco said. It was a privilege to be a part of it.
Jones explained coming together to help their fellow employee wasnt a hard choice.
We all eat together, we got to talking about the wedding, Jones said while the Donohos and Melissas coworkers discussed the wedding at Heritage. I said, Ill make a cake, Phil said, well I know someone.... We all decided to pitch in.
A group of about 100 people attended the wedding, with most packed into the small Heritage chapel and overflow in the common area. The event which featured a low-key reception with cake, ice cream and photos afterward.
The gathered included family, friends and Melissas Heritage coworkers. Among the group were most of the facilitys 71 residents.
It was very special, resident Jim Wathen said while taking a break during a game of ladder ball with his friends. She included everybody.
The Donohos shares a love of hunting, fishing, laughter and life.
Ron Donoho is an Underwood native, graduating from Underwood High School in 1968. Melissa Donoho, nee Malone, is Council Bluffs native and 1997 graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School. Theyve known each other for years.
He was a family friend. We went fishing together, Malone said.
During an interview, Ron Donoho was mostly quiet and fatigued, but he said he enjoyed the wedding.
It was nice, really. I like it, he said with a smile. This gave us more than just going to a chapel.
During the interview, Melissa Donoho helped her husband walk from the business office to the chapel, putting an arm on his shoulders for support.
She said shes thankful for the support from her family as she juggles work and caring for her husband.
Awesome, the newlywed said. We loved it.
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Royal Canadian Legion branches in Sudbury honoured the 99th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge on April 10.
Royal Canadian Legion branches in Sudbury honoured the 99th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge on April 10.
Between April 9 and April 12, 1917, four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force fought a fierce battle against three divisions of the German Sixth Army. The Canucks were tasked with taking control of the high ground to protect a British advance in the Battle of Arras, itself a diversion for a French attack against the Germans called the Nivelle Offensive.
Vimy Ridge was the first time the four divisions of the Canadian Corps fought together, and ever since has been seen as a moment that helped define the Canadian identity. The Canadian National Vimy Memorial, at the site of the battle, is still visited by countless Canadians.
The sacrifice of those soldiers was at the forefront when Legion members, as well as the Irish Regiment, Greater Sudbury Police Service, Polish Combatants Association, and the Navy, Sea and Army Cadets marched from Tom Davies Square to the Church of the Epiphany for a memorial service.
Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, and Harjit S. Sajjan, Minister of National Defence, issued the following statement commemorating Vimy Ridge Day:
"Today we remember the Battle of Vimy Ridge, fought over four days beginning April 9, 1917, which many believe marked Canada's coming of age as a nation. Of the 100,000 Canadians who fought in this First World War battle, more than 7,000 were wounded and nearly 3,600 lost their lives. Canadian bravery in the face of difficult circumstance was the hallmark of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, and has become the standard by which our Canadian Armed Forces operate today.
"While we can never fully appreciate what our soldiers experienced at the Battle of Vimy Ridge, 99 years ago, we will remember and honour them. We are forever indebted to those who served and those who sacrificed their lives in defence of our country. Many paid the ultimate sacrifice to help ensure the peace and freedom for which Canada is recognized around the world.
"Every year, on this day, communities across Canada pay tribute to the soldiers who fought at Vimy Ridge. The courage of our Canadian heroes will never be forgotten."
The Nebraska 4-H Foundation would like to congratulate the Young Riders 4-H Club for being awarded the Nebraska 4-H Club of the Month for March 2016. This 4-H Club, of Broken Bow in Custer County, has truly made a difference in their community.
The Young Riders 4-H Club has been very active with fundraising efforts to help their local county fairgrounds. The club hosted a bake sale to help raise money for fairgrounds improvements and also donated enough money to purchase a sign for the fairgrounds entrance to help visitors during their stay at the fairgrounds.
The membership for Young Riders has increased significantly in the past year, with a 20 percent increase in active participating members.
Lastly, the club hosts an open 4-H horse show that is open to all participants enrolled in the 4-H horse project in Nebraska. The members solicit sponsors for awards and lunch.
The Nebraska 4-H Foundation provides the 4-H Club of the Month program to all Nebraska 4-H clubs throughout the state.
For more information, contact the Custer County Extension office at 308-872-6831 or e-mail custer-county@unl.edu.
LOWELL More than 140 people gathered Saturday at the Lake County Highway Department garage to hear how to defeat a proposed privately funded $8 billion, 278-mile long rail line that would cut through southern Lake County and southern Porter County on its way from Wisconsin to LaPorte.
Sponsored by Lake County commissioner Gerry Scheub, D-Crown Point, and state Sen. Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell, the informational meeting also drew state Rep. Mike Aylesworth, R-Hebron, and Tri-Creek School Corp. Superintendent Debra Howe as well as representatives of Residents Against the Invasion of Land by Eminent Domain, said spokeswoman Kathleen Honl.
All are opposed to Great Lakes Basin Transportation LLCs proposal to build a rail line whose tracks could accommodate the carrying capacity of 110 freight trains a day and would be designed to offer freight trains a route around the congested lines through Chicago.
If the proposal is granted, there would be one train on the tracks every 13 minutes, according to the Great Lakes Basin Transportations plans, said Bob Cauffman, of Residents Against the Invasion of Land by Eminent Domain.
Based in Crete, Ill., the company was formed in 2010 by managing partner Frank Patton. A 1966 graduate of the University of Iowa, Patton holds a business degree and owned a company specializing in software services for 32 years.
However, Patton has no railroad experience, said Cauffman during his PowerPoint presentation.
We didnt hear about this (proposal) until March 22, less than two weeks ago, said Scheub. Weve joined hands with Porter County and are with them 100 percent. Our goals are to defeat this.
He has proposed an alternate route with train traffic diverted to the existing Norfolk Southern tracks, which run through the town of Schneider and the community of Shelby in Lake County and the town of Wheatfield in northern Jasper County.
Although Scheub called the proposed rail line another insult to south county," he said "we have to have the STB (U.S. Surface Transportation Board) on our side. We cant say insult next Tuesday at the STB meeting.'
That meeting with the federal agency begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Lowell VFW Hall, 17401 Morse St. The STB agreed to host an additional public meeting from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Tuesday at Aberdeen Manor Ballroom, 216 Ballantrae St. in Valparaiso.
Howe emphasized the negative impacts on education including noise and vibration. The rail lines route would take it close to Lowell Middle School.
The school system is on record being opposed to this, she said.
The Porter County Board of Commissioners also approved a resolution 3-0 opposing the project out of concern for drainage, decreased property values, safety issues and potential road closures.
The STB could take one of three actions on the rail line proposal, Scheub said.
They can approve whats requested. They could take an alternate route or they could deny it, he said. We want it defeated, period.
In addition to attending Tuesdays STB meetings, residents are encouraged to email their concerns to the STB website, www.stb.dot.gov and contact their elected officials by email. The deadline for submitting those comments has just been extended to June 15.
VALPARAISO AAUW Valparaiso announces the 2016 Equal Pay Day observance, the Unhappy Hour," to be held from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Tuesday. Equal Pay Day reflects how far into 2016 women must work to match what men earned in 2015. The Unhappy Hour is a cocktail party at Casa Del Roma featuring a cash bar and snacks, and a presentation by Dr. Amy Atchinson, assistant professor of political science at Valparaiso University. The public is invited to attend.
Dr. Atchison has recently returned from the United Nations where she was a member of an eightmember delegation of the American Association of University Women who participated in the UNs 60th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. Dr. Atchinson was one of only two university women on the delegation which discussed female empowerment as a human rights issue, stressing that promoting womens rights encourages better sustainable development initiatives. As part of her mission to bring the UN conversation to Valparaiso, she will speak to the Unhappy Hour attendees about womens rights issues that lead to the wage gap. In all areas of the economy, studies by AAUW reported in the publication The Simple Truth about the Equal Pay Gap show that women with equal qualifications and educations earn 21 percent less than men, or about two million fewer dollars throughout a comparable career.
Dr. Atchison spent 10 years in corporate America before earning a PhD in political science from the University of Tennessee. She teaches comparative politics and public policy courses at Valparaiso University and is doing research on gender issues as they relate to politics in advanced industrial nations.
AAUW invites interested persons from both genders to join the conversation on womens rights and economics. Donations to the AAUW scholarship fund will be accepted. Those wearing red will win a prize. More information on the Unhappy Hour is available at aauwvalparaiso.org, and on the issue of equal pay at the national website, aauw.org. To RSVP to attend the Unhappy Hour, call (219) 766-2529.
After two journeys across the Atlantic and a six-month adventure in Europe, Julia Jackson came back to Purdue University Northwest with a broad knowledge of seven different cultures.
While studying abroad in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Jackson devoted free time and spare weekends to venture to Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
Jackson, a senior pursuing her bachelors degree in communication with a minor in global studies, was one of three Purdue University Northwest students to choose the study abroad program at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Jackson lived in Rotterdam from January until June of last year.
Although Jackson had never visited Europe, it was not her first excursion abroad. At 18, Jackson lived in the Philippines for two months.
That was the moment that I realized I wanted to absorb as many cultures and as many beautiful sights as I can in my life and thats what really drove me to the Netherlands, Jackson said.
Jackson wanted to do an exchange program that lasted more than a few weeks and Erasmus University was the best choice for her, she said. The university had classes that went along with her major, including classes in media and communication. These courses ranged from film courses to the ethics of communication.
Most of her travels during her exchange were unplanned or last-minute decisions. Jackson said her first adventure was a two-hour train ride to Brussels, which was decided on a Wednesday.
We left in a few days and we were like, 'OK, see ya!'" Jackson said.
She said travel is relatively cheap and easy in Europe because the countries are smaller and closer together.
She was able to visit Prague and Budapest in one week. She saw two completely different countries, one filled with castles and the other with city life and the countryside.
She also visited Paris twice during her exchange.
That was my first 'ah-ha' moment, and I was on the edge of tears the first time I saw the Eiffel Tower up close, she said.
Her mother joined for Jacksons second visit to Paris. They also traveled together to Krakow, Poland, to get a better understanding of their Polish heritage.
Jackson was invited to stay in a friends home in Germany during Easter.
Everyone got together around a bonfire, burning Christmas trees and other wood. It symbolized the coming of spring, Jackson said. She said it was nice to experience Easter in a different way.
Jackson said her foreign journey came with highs and lows, from school to homesickness, but was ultimately life-changing.
I learned how to love myself, and I think thats a hard thing, Jackson said.
She recently traveled to Cancun, Mexcio, with her boyfriend. They visited the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza. She hopes to return to Rotterdam soon and travel to more European countries as she continues to fill the pages of her passport.
Jackson will graduate this December and is looking into graduate school.
Mr. Conrad grew up in Baltimore and Northern Virginia. At Harvard he majored in mathematics and was exposed to the radically unconventional musical ideas of John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, both of whom lectured in Cambridge, Mass.
After his graduation in 1962, Mr. Conrad briefly worked as a computer programmer and immersed himself in New Yorks experimental music scene. As part of Mr. Youngs ensemble, he performed seemingly improvisational pieces that involved holding notes for what might have felt like hours at a time. Some audiences found the music maddening; others were exalted.
It appeared as if Schoenberg had destroyed music, Mr. Conrad said in an interview with The Guardian in March, referring to the revolutionary Austrian composer. Then it appeared as if Cage had destroyed Schoenberg. Our project was to destroy Cage.
Mr. Conrad considered The Flicker, accompanied by a soundtrack of what he called homemade electronic music, to be an extension of ideas that he shared with Mr. Young. In a 1966 interview with the Village Voice critic Jonas Mekas, Mr. Conrad explained that he was working within a form of light that is broken down not into areas or into colors but into frequencies.
As austere as it was, The Flicker had the power to cause viewers to see color patterns, and even to induce hallucinations. Although there were some who did not consider The Flicker to be a film at all, it was included at the 1966 New York Film Festival. A photograph of a festival audience watching the film shows most people shielding their eyes or plugging their ears and one spectator who seems transfixed.
In 1970, Anthology Film Archives, a center in New York for the preservation, study and exhibition of film and video, included The Flicker on its list of essential works of cinema art.
William Hamilton, a cartoonist whose work for The New Yorker over more than 50 years was known for skewering the wealthy and the powerful, died on Friday in a car crash in Lexington, Ky. He was 76.
His wife, Lucy Young Hamilton, confirmed his death.
She said he was driving about four miles from their horse farm when he either passed out or was distracted and drove through a stop sign. His vehicle was struck on the drivers side by a pickup truck, she said.
Lt. Jackie Newman of the Lexington Police Department said the collision happened on a rural road around 2:45 p.m. Mr. Hamilton was pronounced dead at the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington.
Mr. Hamilton, who also wrote novels and plays, began his career with The New Yorker in 1965 and was still working there at his death.
Mariloly Orozco and Michael Edward Casas were married April 9 at Epiphany Catholic Church in Coral Gables, Fla. Msgr. Jude ODoherty, a Roman Catholic priest, performed the ceremony with the Rev. Nicholas Monco, also a Catholic priest and a cousin of the groom, taking part.
The bride, 27, is a law clerk for Judge Martin Glenn of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of South Florida and received a law degree from Cornell. She is the daughter of Gabriela Orozco and Jose Orozco of Palm City, Fla. The brides father retired as the owner of a grocery store in Port St. Lucie, Fla. Her mother is an independent nursing assistant in Palm City.
The groom, 28, is an associate specializing in mergers and acquisitions at the New York law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. He graduated from Northwestern and also received a law degree from Cornell. He is a son of Alicia A. Casas and Ramon F. Casas of Coral Gables, Fla. The grooms father owns a public relations firm in Miami that bears his name.
Ms. Orozco and Mr. Casas met in August 2010 on the side of a road in Ithaca, N.Y. Mr. Casas, then a second-year law student at Cornell, found Ms. Orozco, a first-year law student, dealing with car trouble.
BUENOS AIRES An Argentine federal prosecutor is seeking to include former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in a widening investigation into money laundering, according to news media reports on Saturday.
The prosecutor, Guillermo Marijuan, made the decision after a financier, who had been jailed in a separate case, gave lengthy testimony on Friday, according to Telam, the state news agency.
The judge overseeing the investigation, Sebastian Casanello, must decide how to proceed with the recommendation to investigate Mrs. Kirchner, the countrys president from 2007 until last December, and Julio de Vido, a prominent former minister in her administration.
It is unclear whether Mr. Marijuan hasactually filed the recommendation yet. Efforts to speak to his office on Saturday evening were unsuccessful.
SYDNEY, Australia Kim Cobb, a marine scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, expected the coral to be damaged when she plunged into the deep blue waters off Kiritimati Island, a remote atoll near the center of the Pacific Ocean. Still, she was stunned by what she saw as she descended some 30 feet to the rim of a coral outcropping.
The entire reef is covered with a red-brown fuzz, Dr. Cobb said when she returned to the surface after her recent dive. It is otherworldly. It is algae that has grown over dead coral. It was devastating.
The damage off Kiritimati is part of a mass bleaching of coral reefs around the world, only the third on record and possibly the worst ever. Scientists believe that heat stress from multiple weather events including the latest, severe El Nino, compounded by climate change, has threatened more than a third of Earths coral reefs. Many may not recover.
Coral reefs are the crucial incubators of the oceans ecosystem, providing food and shelter to a quarter of all marine species, and they support fish stocks that feed more than one billion people. They are made up of millions of tiny animals, called polyps, that form symbiotic relationships with algae, which in turn capture sunlight and carbon dioxide to make sugars that feed the polyps.
Government forces were deployed to kill or capture the Abu Sayyaf commander Isnilon Hapilon, who has publicly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and has been hunted for years for his involvement in several terrorist attacks, three military officials said.
Washington has offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Mr. Hapilons capture and prosecution.
The Abu Sayyaf militants, many of whom were armed with grenade launchers, reinforced their ranks as the fighting raged and inflicted heavy casualties on government troops, the officials said.
The fighting lasted for more than nine hours, they said.
Among the militants who were killed was a Moroccan who was identified as Mohammad Khattab, and one of Mr. Hapilons sons, Major Tan said, adding that about 20 other gunmen were wounded.
It was the largest single-day loss of government fighters this year in the south, where the military has been battling Muslim separatist rebels and Marxist guerrillas.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India More than 80 people were killed early Sunday in a fire that broke out during a fireworks display in a temple in the southern Indian state of Kerala, a top official said.
Another 200 were injured as people became trapped by flames in the crowded Paravoor temple in the city of Kollam during a major festival, said Ramesh Chennithala, the state home minister.
The fire started when a spark during a fireworks display ignited a separate batch of fireworks that had been stored in the Puttingal temple complex in Paravoor village, a few hours north of Keralas state capital of Thiruvananthapuram, Mr. Chennithala said. The fireworks were to be used in the Hindu new year festival called Vishu this Thursday, he said.
The idea was simple but novel: Take one picture of as many women in New York Citys varied comedy scenes as possible.
And so on Saturday afternoon, despite the cold and rain, more than 200 female comedians gathered to have their photo taken together at a performance space in Brooklyn. Amid a festive, buzzing energy, some of the comedians were in formal wear and extravagant makeup, while a few were in full costume (an elderly woman with a walker, a Vine star with painted-on eyeglasses and crab claw hands). The motley looks could have come from the Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover.
Balanced on a stepladder in front of the risers of women, the photographer Mindy Tucker paused to reflect on the moment. Ive been in comedy a long time, and this has never happened before, she said as the room cheered.
A. Forbes has been an amazing company, but most of its culture and business had been built around a print business. When I came on board, it was time to shift toward the Internet, while honoring the old, because Forbes still publishes profitably in the United States and we publish in 37 different countries, so the print element of our business is still very strong. But we changed the culture from this old line of traditional print publishing business, and all that goes with that, to a digital, technology-based business, and that was a very big shift. Many people welcomed it because they could see where the business and the industry was going; some people had to learn there were ways to balance the old culture with the new one. Inevitably, there is that kind of youre in or youre out moment with a new culture, and there are some people who arent going to adapt to that.
So you find the right way to let them move on. You cant please everyone as a chief.
Q. But ideally, you want to get as many employees to buy into your new vision. How do you do that?
A. Listening at first is critically important. Long-term employees have a lot of answers for a new C.E.O. They really know what needs to be done to create success. Finding the right time to transition from listening to creating a strategic plan, working closely with your team, and moving toward very directed and sometimes very different actions, I think, is the most interesting and exciting part of the process. But it always starts with listening. Over the last five years, we went from 15 million unique visitors a month to almost 50 million a month, and weve had a lot of success through innovation and a new approach of building the content platform and monetizing it. And one of the most gratifying things for us is what I call boomerang staffers, people who had left sometime along the timeline and came back: Weve had at least two dozen of those.
Q. What do you see a key challenge for a leader?
A. What Ive learned over the years is that everyone needs to have their replacement somewhere in the organization. We should all be thinking about if were not here, who is going to do our job? Ive tried to solve this by having a program in place where people are always training their successor.
Q. That could also create a feeling of unease.
A. Yes. But if you are more threatened by it than empowered by it, then youve got to work on that.
And its not just about training your replacement: If you think youre really good at your job and you feel youre performing at 110 percent, but you want to be a great manager and you need to mobilize action from people, you have to be willing to manage people who are only going to be able to do it at 80 to 90 percent of the effectiveness that you have, and let go of responsibilities that you know you can do better than anyone, to someone who is not as experienced and skilled, but might do it at a very efficient rate. Its a hard thing to do and learn, but its so important in organizations.
Q. How much have you changed as a leader over the years?
A. Im more patient, Im more willing to wait a little longer to pull the trigger on whatever decision one needs to make in order to really inform that decision with all the information that is necessary.
The Treasurys schedule of financing this week includes Mondays regular weekly auction of new three- and six-month bills and an auction of four-week bills on Tuesday.
At the close of the New York cash market on Friday, the rate on the outstanding three-month bill was 0.23 percent. The rate on the six-month issue was 0.34 percent, and the rate on the four-week issue was 0.19 percent.
The following tax-exempt fixed-income issues are scheduled for pricing this week:
MONDAY
Florida Board of Education, $220 million of debt securities. Competitive.
TUESDAY
Alaska Municipal Bond Bank, $70.4 million of revenue bonds. Competitive.
California, $74.6 million of revenue bonds. Competitive.
Colorado, $154.6 million of Platte River Power Authority general obligation bonds. Competitive.
ROCHESTER, N.Y. Gov. John Kasichs first visit to upstate New York last week was moved twice to accommodate a crowd larger than anticipated.
But that positive bit of news for Mr. Kasich, reported in The Post-Standard of Syracuse on Friday, was upstaged by a headline blaring Trump to Visit, announcing an event more than a week away.
For Mr. Kasich, the Ohio governor, and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, that is how every day in the run-up to the New York primary on April 19 seems to be playing out with excruciating reminders that on Donald J. Trumps home turf, they will forever grasp for an edge that appears to recede.
Mr. Kasich spoke on Friday to about 1,000 people in Syracuse, one of the biggest crowds of his campaign. But, Mr. Trump drew far more to an airport hangar in Rochester on Sunday, where he ripped the rules of the Republican nominating race that might allow an opponent who has fewer delegates than he has to win the nomination at the national convention.
MANILA At least 18 soldiers were killed and more than 50 wounded in a gun battle in the southern Philippines between government forces and the militant group Abu Sayyaf, military officials said Sunday.
Among the militants, the dead included a Moroccan bomb maker and the son of a rebel leader, the military said. It also said more than 20 rebels were believed to have been wounded, but offered no additional details.
The firefight took place on Saturday on the southwestern island of Basilan and lasted 10 hours, the military said. The day before, Abu Sayyaf had released Rolando del Torchio, a former Italian missionary turned restaurateur who was kidnapped from his pizzeria in the southern Philippine city of Dipolog in October.
At least 20 other foreign citizens are still being held by the group.
The military did not make a connection on Sunday between the release of Mr. del Torchio and the gun battle, other than that both involved factions of Abu Sayyaf.
BRUSSELS The announcement on Sunday that the plotters of last months Brussels terror attacks had originally intended to hit Paris again only heightened the concern among police and intelligence agencies that shadowy Islamic State networks could unleash new attacks at any time, not only in France and Belgium but in other European capitals.
As intelligence experts and officials took stock of what they have learned since the Nov. 13 assaults in and around Paris, which killed 130 people, several things have come into focus. The scale of the Islamic States operations in Europe are still not known, but they appear to be larger and more layered than investigators at first realized; if the Paris and Brussels attacks are any model, the plotters will rely on local criminal networks in addition to committed extremists.
Even as the United States, its allies and Russia have killed leaders of the Islamic State, and have rolled back some of the extremist organizations gains on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State appears to be posing a largely hidden and lethal threat across much of Europe.
When Belgian prosecutors announced that Mohamed Abrini, one of the men arrested on Friday, had confessed to being the mysterious third man in the Brussels Airport bombing, it seemed to mark a rare victory for Belgian law enforcement, which has struggled to track down extremists. But it also was a reminder of the ease with which the Islamic States operatives move across borders and the shifting roles that suspects play: According to prosecutors, Mr. Abrini was a logistician in the Paris attacks but was meant to be a bomber in the Brussels attack except that his bomb failed to explode.
LONDON Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, admitting that he had made a mess of responding to questions about his inheritance from his father, who had an investment company offshore, on Sunday released information from his tax returns for the past six years.
Mr. Cameron has moved belatedly to try to defuse a furor over his finances in the wake of the release last week of leaked information about offshore companies in the so-called Panama Papers, which showed that his father, Ian, was a director of an offshore trust that paid no British taxes.
Mr. Cameron insisted that neither he nor his father had done anything illegal. He said all taxes due had been paid on proceeds from the fund and on an inheritance of 300,000 pounds, or about $424,000 according to current exchange rates, that he received when his father died in 2010.
The tax information Mr. Cameron released also showed that he received 200,000 (about $282,400) from his mother in 2011, on which he will pay no inheritance tax if she lives until 2018, but more questions were raised about whether those funds came from offshore accounts.
KIEV, Ukraine Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, the prime minister of Ukraine, announced his resignation on Sunday in a surprise move that opened a new period of political uncertainty here.
Mr. Yatsenyuk, an economist backed by Ukraines Western allies, including the United States, came to power two years ago behind the wave of popular anger that culminated with the Maidan street protests, which led to the downfall of President Viktor F. Yanukovych. Mr. Yatsenyuk and Petro O. Poroshenko, who became president, emerged as the nations most prominent political figures.
But the revolutions leaders soon turned on each other. Although authority is supposed to be balanced evenly between the president and the prime minister, Ukraines Western allies eventually sided with Mr. Poroshenko and pushed Mr. Yatsenyuk to step aside.
In recent months, both men had been resisting compromises on appointments and were reportedly thwarting corruption investigations into allies, threatening Western aid.
WASHINGTON With the Obama administration in its final year, several officials have said that the president has grown so frustrated with trying to revive Middle East peace talks that he may lay down his own outline for an Israeli-Palestinian two-state peace agreement, in the form of a resolution in the United Nations Security Council.
If that happens, count on two reactions: Israels prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will oppose it, and a chorus of American politicians and commentators will suggest that it would be unprecedented even unthinkable for an American president to support a Security Council resolution that Israel opposed, rather than veto it.
Last spring, when similar reports circulated, Senator John McCain of Arizona said that such an action would contradict American policy for the last at least 10 presidents of the United States. The Republican chairman and ranking Democrat of the House Foreign Affairs Committee joined in a letter protesting that for decades the U.S. has used its U.N. Security Council veto to protect Israel from undue pressure at the world body. A bipartisan group of senators agreed, seeking assurances that the policy would not change.
Remarkably, the assumption beneath those protests that President Obama would be committing an unprecedented betrayal of the American-Israeli relationship if he did not block every Security Council resolution that challenged the actions or positions of Israels government has gone unchallenged.
PARIS The Belgian federal prosecutor confirmed Saturday that Mohamed Abrini who was arrested Friday afternoon was the man in the hat captured in surveillance footage alongside two suicide bombers at Brussels Airport on March 22.
Abrini had been at large since the Brussels attacks, which killed 32 and injured hundreds more at the airport in Zaventem and a metro station close to the headquarters of the European Union. Footage showed him calmly walking out of the airport and into the city, where he disappeared.
He was arrested Friday in the Schaerbeek section of Brussels, not far from the apartment where he and his collaborators left for the airport on the morning of the attacks.
After being confronted with the results of the different expert examinations, he confessed his presence at the crime scene, the federal prosecutor said in a statement. He explained having thrown away his vest in a garbage bin and having sold his hat afterwards.
Abrini was also a significant actor in the attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, 2015, which killed 130 and injured hundreds more in a coordinated series of shootings and suicide bombings at a stadium, concert hall and restaurants across the French capital.
According to European investigative files obtained by The Washington Post, Abrini ferried fellow terrorists back and forth across the French-Belgian border in the days leading up to the attacks. He was seen on camera with Brahim Abdeslam, who detonated a suicide bomb outside a Paris cafe, and with Salah Abdeslam, who was arrested in Brussels on March 18.
The documents also suggest that Abrini probably traveled from Europe to Syria and back, via Turkey, in the months before the November attacks.
In addition to Abrini, suspects identified as Osama K., Herve B.M. and Bilal E.M. have been charged with terrorist murder and participating in the activities of a terrorist group, the prosecutors office said Saturday.
Despite these arrests, Belgiums Interior Minister Jan Jambon was quick to point out that more terrorists could still be at work in the small nation that has become a hotbed for radical Islamist activity in Europe.
There are perhaps other cells that are still active on our territory, Jambon told Belgiums RTL television network on Saturday.
Belgium remains on high alert.
SACRAMENTO The last time I was in an animal shelter, I adopted a furry 8-year-old puss named Gus. The shelter was clean but depressing: It was filled with whelping dogs (mostly pit-bull mixes) and terrified cats that, most likely, were not long for this world. It was one of the nicer shelters Ive been to, but it had the charm of a county jail.
That shelter had a novel program. On Fridays, it sold its elderly cats for five bucks. Thats a great deal, since the cats are spayed or neutered, have shots and come with coupons for a free veterinary visit. Thats the first time I recall any shelter offering such a market-based approach. Most people want kittens, and the lovable old fellas often go begging.
This came to mind after reading about the latest travails at the Orange County Animal Services Department. According to news reports, animal activists and a city council member accused department officials of underreporting their kill rate the percentage of animals put down. Official estimates previously put that number at 6 percent, but the Voice of OC reported that its actually been a far higher rate of around 35 percent, according to data later provided by the county in response to a legal settlement with an animal rescuer.
(In fairness, either kill-rate figure is lower than what it had been a few years ago.)
County animal-care officials had no response to the allegations, according to that report. And big surprise here the union that represents the animal-care workers defended the agency and argued it provides a valuable public safety function because of the many times it refers animal-related criminal cases to the prosecutors. A subsequent Board of Supervisors meeting was filled with debate over possible reforms. Lets face it: Nothing will change. The animal shelter has been plagued by problems for many years.
I love the quotation from the late commentator Paul Harvey cited at the beginning of the Orange County grand jurys 2014-15 report on the state of the county animal shelter: Ever occur to you why some of us can be this much concerned with animal suffering? Because government is not. Why not? Because animals do not vote.
Animals dont vote. Government agencies dont have customers. They too often operate for the good of those who work for them. They ultimately are funded through tax dollars. If this were a business, there would be all sorts of promotions to discount less-sought-after merchandise (e.g., old cats and hard-to-place pit-bull-type dogs). They would be open the hours that shoppers prefer. The facilities would be comfortable and cheery.
The grand jury has concluded that the countys lack of leadership, lack of commitment to animal care, and the prioritization of other Orange County Community Resources Department functions ahead of Orange County Animal Care are the primary reasons for failure to address the need of new animal shelter facilities, according to the report. Ouch.
An ABC News investigation from May detailed allegations of problems at the agency. A Los Angeles Times article from 2004 was headlined, Grand Jury Blasts Animal Shelter Again. Shelter officials disputed the report, as have officials during the most recent reports. But, last year, the Registers Teri Sforza detailed the countys long-running animal-control problems. Red rust eats at kennel frames. Partitions have frozen in place. Wet, black noses poke between what look like prison bars, she wrote, noting the countys fusty facility dates to 1941. She quotes a supervisor complaining about it in 1983.
In 2000, the OC Weekly criticized Santa Anas shelter (e.g., paperwork screw-ups lead to dead animals.), which it used to show that private shelters are as bad as government ones. Sure, privatized agencies have many of the same flaws as government (they are funded by public contracts, not by luring customers in a competitive environment), but at least bad contractors can be fired.
Defenders of the current system say the problem lies in the nature of the situation. Its hard to have a true private business model dealing with unwanted animals. Or is it? The grand jury found that the agency is virtually self-supporting through fees generated from the 18 contract cities. Those are fees from local governments, but its hard for me to believe no one can come up with a way to buy and sell and treat unwanted animals for a profit.
In my view, we let the government handle such things because were too lazy or uncaring to think more deeply about alternatives. Future boards and grand juries likely will be debating the same problems in the same agency. Those of us who think a cuddly old fellow like Gus should be purring on a loving familys sofa rather than awaiting euthanasia ought to put more effort into finding private ways to solve this endless public problem.
Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. He was a Register editorial writer from 1998-2009. He is based in Sacramento. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.
WARSAW, Poland Hundreds of thousands of people whose personal fates hinge on whether Britain leaves the European Union or stays dont even have a say in the matter: Polish immigrants, a community so numerous that Polish has become Britains second most-spoken language.
When Poland and many other countries once behind the Iron Curtain joined the EU 12 years ago, Poles gained unprecedented opportunities to live and work in Western Europe a freedom unthinkable in the communist era.
Britains dynamic economy has attracted more people from Poland than any other single EU country, and they worry that they could be among the big losers if British voters opt for Brexit in the June 23 referendum.
There is a lot of uncertainty and worry now, said Jakub Krupa, the head of Poles in UK, an umbrella organization that works with Polish groups in Britain, and the London correspondent for Polish news agency PAP. Nobody really expects a situation in which all of the old borders are back, but people dont really understand what might happen. There seems to be no clear arrangement for what the future will look like if there is Brexit.
Krupa said there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that many Poles are applying for British citizenship, or plan to, even though the fee of more than 1,100 pounds ($1,560) puts off many others.
Ilona Korzeniowska, editor of Polish Express, a Polish-language newspaper published in Britain, said her website has seen a spike this year in Poles looking for information about citizenship. She said many Poles simply dont have enough information to understand how Brexit would affect them.
There are now about 850,000 Poles working in Britain, while Poland has an overall population of 38 million. So its little surprise that Poles overwhelmingly hope that Britain remains in the EU 80 percent, according to a recent survey by the University of Edinburgh.
Under British law, immigrants who have resided in the U.K. for more than five years can apply for permanent residency. The Polish Institute of International Affairs, a Warsaw-based think tank, estimates that still leaves between 120,000 to 400,000 Poles who arrived after 2012. If Britain leaves the EU, they would have to apply for work visas and, if rejected, leave the country.
I am not worried about myself, but many of my friends are afraid, said Pawel Pruszkowski, a Pole who has worked in the UK since 2012.
Some longtime Polish residents of Britain say they worry mostly about the broader economic implications of Brexit, which some economists predict could lead to an economic slowdown in Britain.
Jacek Mazur, a 35-year-old who has worked in Britain for 10 years, says he is confident he would be allowed to stay after so many years of working and paying taxes in Britain, but he fears the electrical supply company he works for in Hastings could lose its markets in the EU.
If they lose their customers from the EU then that would affect everyone. So I am worried about the bigger situation, he said. But if for some reason I couldnt stay on in the U.K., I would say fair enough. There is only 2 percent unemployment in Warsaw now, so everyone can find a job.
Polands government strongly supports Britain staying in the UK, though some experts say Poland could actually benefit if many of the Polish workers returned home in large numbers with their new skills.
A mass return could help reverse the loss of many young people, some with university education, that the country has seen since it joined the EU in 2004, and offset a dramatic population decline expected to take place in the coming decades due to a low birth rate.
But it isnt clear that Poles forced to leave the U.K. would even want to return home in significant numbers. Some experts believe many would simply move on to another Western European country, with Ireland already home to many Poles considered the next most attractive destination.
Even if Britain stays in the EU, there will still be some change for Polish workers because of a deal British Prime Minister David Cameron negotiated with the EU that would cut some of the welfare benefits of foreign workers. It will take effect if Britain stays in the bloc.
Krupa says many Poles in the U.K. actually support such reforms after being accused by pro-Brexit campaigners and tabloids of sponging from the welfare system, an accusation not supported by statistics. The reforms would take away some of the arguments against them in public opinion, he said.
A British departure could create a long-term dilemma for Prime Minister Beata Szydlos government in Warsaw, which itself is skeptical of ceding power to the EU.
If Britain leaves, Poland would move up a place to become the EUs fifth-largest economy, which would seemingly make Poland more important, said Roch Dunin-Wasowicz, a researcher on migrants with the Institute of Public Affairs in Warsaw.
However, he noted that Britains current status on the outer rim of the EU allows Poland not to come closer to the inner circle.
Brexit would probably trigger a closer integration of the core EU countries because they would be afraid of a ripple effect, said Dunin-Wasowicz, who is also a managing editor of a blog on the Brexit vote run by the London School of Economics.
That would put Polands government in a difficult position of deciding if it is in or out of the core countries.
Southern California Gas Co.s plan to fully deploy a network of upgraded gas meters faces hurdles in some parts of Orange County as local officials assert they have the authority to approve where pole-mounted wireless transmitting units should go and how they should look, the Register has learned.
Municipalities including Laguna Beach and Newport Beach have been involved in lengthy talks with SoCalGas over the setup of poles and antennas that collect data from advanced meters at homes and most businesses and send the data to the gas company.
Cities across Southern California are in various stages of shifting to the advanced meter networks, which eventually are expected to eliminate the need for human meter readers.
SoCalGas is still in the process of obtaining permits to install network units in Laguna Beach and Newport Beach. Buena Park has had the technology since late 2012. The network also has been set up in Irvine, but some recent installations were needed to fill gaps in the coverage. The systems in Seal Beach and Huntington Beach are works in progress.
The local permitting challenges are the latest bump to emerge in the gas companys massive effort to upgrade millions of old analog meters and phase out the process of sending workers through neighborhoods to read the units manually. Over the last six years, SoCalGas personnel assigned to meter reading have been reduced from more than 1,000 to about 70, company figures show.
The meter upgrades, which began in late 2012, drew opposition from a major watchdog group and the utility workers union after they were proposed eight years ago. And more recently, customers complained about big hikes in bills in January and February that some suspect may be tied to the meter changes. The company said the large bills were primarily due to cold weather that required more indoor heating.
SoCalGas says that the advanced meters which, in most cases, are attachments or modules added to existing meters are highly accurate and cost-effective, and that their roll out has been a success. The company says it is 80 percent complete with the installation of advanced-meter modules in Orange County.
But company officials also have said that recent changes in meter-reading schedules, in part related to the transition to the upgraded meters, resulted in longer billing cycles for some customers and larger bills.
Customer bills are always reconciled and customers are not billed for more gas than theyve used, said Melissa Bailey, a SoCalGas spokeswoman, in an email. If one billing cycle was longer, than another one will be shorter.
In recent weeks, several customers told the Register that theyve received corrected bills after gas company representatives told them their usage had been estimated some for as long as six consecutive billing cycles. Some customers said they were told the estimates were because of a shortage of meter readers, while others said they were not given any explanation. The company has noted estimates of usage for billing purposes are permitted at times under state regulations.
Jerry Acosta, a spokesman for the Utility Workers Union of America, which represents meter readers, said he is not aware of any personnel shortages. Bailey, of SoCalGas, said there are enough meter readers to handle areas that are without a fully deployed, advanced-meter network, as well as customers who opt out of the program.
However, a Feb. 26 report filed by SoCalGas with the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates the company, hinted at a link between possible delays in getting local permits for transmitting equipment and the continuing need to maintain meter readers.
The gas company indicated in the report that as many as 245 of its planned 4,600 data collection units havent been installed because some municipalities are requiring the utility to obtain permits.
SoCalGas has claimed it is essentially exempt from obtaining local permission to install its data collection sites because the company is regulated by the state utilities commission, according to the report and what some local city officials say theyve have been told by the gas company.
If these municipalities continue to assert their current positions, they will considerably delay or prevent the network installation timeline, for the roughly 245 network sites, according to the report.
That means SoCalGas will likely have to maintain certain functions including manual meter reading and related billing systems for far longer than was anticipated, the report says, which would negatively impact expected operational benefits.
Among the benefits the system offers are operational cost savings and environmental benefits from removing 1,000 vehicles used by meter readers traveling nearly 7 million miles a year from the streets, Bailey said. The upgraded meters also are considered more accurate and eliminate potential for human error in reading the meters, she added.
The SoCalGas report warns of potential problems in completing the state-approved system if local agencies are allowed to determine where data collection units can go and how they look.
This discretionary permitting process, the report says. would effectively give a municipality the unilateral right to significantly modify the planned location or design of the DCUs and even preclude the installation of DCUs by the utility.
Utilities commission spokeswoman Terrie Prosper said in an email that SoCalGas interpretation of the permitting situation is correct but offered no specifics.
Several Orange County cities including Laguna Beach have remained firm in defending their permitting prerogatives.
The states utilities commission approval of SoCalGas advanced-meter project didnt take away local jurisdictions, cities discretion for regulating time, place and manner, referring to the proposed transmission sites, said Scott Drapkin, Laguna Beachs principal planner.
Gas company officials have been working with city officials there for more than a year to place roughly 20 wireless transmitting units around the city. City officials have been concerned the installations will interfere with ocean and canyon views.
Generally, new poles can be 24 feet or higher, with a data-collection unit, antennas and a solar panel up top, according to some permit applications filed by the gas company. In some instances, data collection units and antennas are mounted on existing light poles, without solar panels an option cities tend to prefer because they arent as bulky.
The number of meters transmitting to a single data collection unit varies, but on average, there are about 1,300 meters for every unit, the gas companys Bailey said.
The proposed units in Laguna Beach would be mounted on new and existing poles, Drapkin said in an email. But city officials are seeking the least intrusive installation, designs and locations, he said.
In Newport Beach, gas company officials felt they didnt have to go through a review process when discussions began two years ago, said Jim Campbell, the citys principal planner.
After some healthy disagreement, both sides agreed that transmitting units can be mounted on streetlights, which helps reduce scale, Campbell said.
SoCalGas has submitted permit applications for about 20 of its 30 proposed wireless sites, the city says. And its possible most permits will be issued within the next month to allow installation to begin.
Bailey, the gas company spokeswoman, said in a prepared statement that since the start of the advanced-meter roll out the gas company has worked collaboratively with all jurisdictions in our service territory to receive the necessary permits for installations of our communications network/Data Collection units.
The city of Irvine has worked with the gas company to locate the best locations for the wireless units, said city spokeswoman Kim Mohr, in an email. After complaints about a couple of sites, SoCalGas worked quickly to relocate the units, she added.
SoCalGas received slightly more than 220 complaints and questions after installing more than 3,400 data-collection sites across its service area, according to the companys Feb. 26 report. Complaints touched on aesthetics, glare or location.
Contact the writer: lleung@ocregister.com
A San Diego man was killed Saturday afternoon in a two-vehicle crash on the southbound 405 Freeway near the 7th Street on-ramp in Seal Beach, according to California Highway Patrol officials.
The 63-year-old victim was driving a 2001 Ford Explorer, which at 2:12 p.m. collided with a 2014 Mercedes C250 driven by a 79-year-old Newport Beach man.
The force of impact caused both vehicles to travel in a westerly direction, CHP Officer Lance Nieves said in a statement.
The Explorer continued out of control onto the dirt shoulder and into the ice plant embankment, Nieves said. The vehicle overturned several times.
The Newport Beach man sustained minor injuries. Neither vehicle carried passengers.
Both cars were traveling in lanes close to the shoulder, Nieves said. An unsafe lane change was made, but it is undetermined which vehicle made the change, he said.
Contact the writer: sgoulding@ocregister.com
Barack Obama has an unseemly habit of lashing out at congressional Republicans who oppose his policies by accusing them of putting party ahead of country. But as much as the presidents rhetorical tic angers GOP officials, Ted Cruz infuriates them even more.
Privately and often publicly Republicans on Capitol Hill accuse Texas freshman senator of putting his own ambition ahead of party and country. Until recently, their feelings about him could be summed up by invoking Elizabeth Barrett Browning provided the 19th century British poet had an evil twin: How do we hate you, Ted Cruz? Let us count the ways.
Now, however, it seems that GOP officialdom is stuck with Ted Cruz. The cliche about politics and strange bedfellows doesnt begin to describe how weird this is. The only logic that explains it is the ancient adage about the enemy of my enemy being my friend. The enemy in this case being not Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, but instead a certain New York tycoon with a famous hairdo, a penchant for insults and a fetish for a wall along the southern U.S. border.
But for many prominent Republicans, having to choose between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump is an exquisite form of torture. Cruzs colleagues find him officious, selfish and maddening. They doubt his sincerity. They hate how he grandstands. They despise him for impugning the integrity of his own party leaders.
The bill of particulars is well-known in Washington. It starts with how he treats his colleagues and the institutions of government. Deriding the Washington cartel may thrill right-wing talk radio hosts and may have more than a kernel of truth but it hardly endears him to colleagues. Love him in Iowa, hate him in D.C. was a pillar of Cruzs campaign messaging.
Republicans understand that kind of thing. What they dont condone is Cruz calling Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar, which he did last year during the budget fights. In his short Washington career, Cruz helped engineer one government shutdown and tried to engineer another over federal spending and Obamacare. But with no hope of achieving his goal legislatively, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle concluded that he was playing to the mob. And they say these things on the record.
Ted Cruz at his core is an opportunist, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham told CNN anchorman Wolf Blitzer. When it came time to say what Ted Cruz has done in the Senate, what hes done is run down other Republicans.
If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, Graham quipped at this years Washington Press Club Foundation dinner, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody could convict you.
I just dont like the guy, George W. Bush said last October.
Nobody likes him, added Bob Dole. He doesnt have any friends in Congress.
Actually, he does have one or two pals, which John McCain underscored by calling Cruz and his tiny posse wacko birds. If youre keeping count, thats three of the last four Republican presidential nominees who dislike him. Cruz has an answer for that at least a partial answer and its this: Dole and McCain lost because they werent conservative enough.
Republicans win the White House, he says, when they nominate a Reagan-like conservative, not a compromising creature of the Senate like Dole or McCain. But Cruz doesnt mind undercutting his fellow Senate conservatives either. Arkansas Sen. John Boozman took Cruz to task for being a bully. New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte accused him of threatening government shutdowns for personal publicity. Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson called his strategy intellectually dishonest.
Again, these are not liberals saying these things. Boozman, Ayotte and Johnson are conservatives elected as was Cruz with Tea Party support back home. And as much as his Senate colleagues despise him, House Republicans have even less regard for Cruz.
Rep. Peter King of New York has compared Cruz to a carnival barker. Former House Speaker John Boehner referred to Cruz as that jackass and a false prophet. Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania calls Cruz a rigid ideologue. Rep. Sean Duffy of Wisconsin, objecting to how Cruz played Senate and House Republicans against one another during the shutdown, said, Thank God he wasnt there fighting at the Alamo!
Hes a nasty guy, Donald Trump added during a presidential debate. Nobody likes him. Nobody in Congress likes him. Nobody likes him anywhere once they get to know him.
Ah, but theres the rub the source of that comment. GOP officeholders find Trump just as obnoxious as Cruz. But at least Cruz is a conservative whose policy views are known. Trump is a blank slate, with views that are all over the map. Choosing between them has many Republicans reaching for suicide or homicide metaphors. Asked whom he would pick between them, Peter King said, I hope that day never comes. I will jump off that bridge when we come to it.
Before he joked about Ted Cruz being murdered on the Senate floor, Lindsey Graham once described a choice between Cruz and Trump this way: Its like being shot or poisoned. What does it really matter?
But as the July convention draws closer, with Cruz having the only chance to catch Trump in the delegate count, the Republican establishment is realizing that it does matter. Graham himself endorsed Cruz, one of five former 2016 presidential candidates to do so. He joins Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, Rick Perry and Scott Walker. (Ben Carson and Chris Christie endorsed Trump.)
Watching a Senate Republican take the plunge for Cruz is not a pretty sight, though. On Wednesday, Jim Risch of Idaho became only the third senator to endorse Cruz for the GOP nomination if thats what he actually did.
In an interview with Blitzer, Risch suggested that Cruz was the best remaining alternative. Hearing himself say this aloud, a nonplused Risch blurted out, Did I just endorse, Wolf?
You sort of said you prefer him over the two, Blitzer replied. That sounds like an endorsement, doesnt it?
I guess, Risch said. It depends on your definition.
Not every member of the GOP establishment sees it this way.
If it came down to Trump or Cruz, there is no question Id vote for Trump, said former New York mayor and 2008 presidential candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani.
Sen. Richard Burr reportedly told party donors at a closed-door fundraiser that hed vote for fellow senator Bernie Sanders over Cruz, a statement he later implied was made in jest. All Burr has said publicly is that hell back the GOP nominee.
Does such ambivalence imply a desire for a brokered convention that manages to steer the nomination away from Cruz and Trump? Perhaps. Thats certainly the fantasy of the Republican establishment. Its not something youd want to put on a bumper sticker, but what theyre thinking, increasingly is: Ted Cruz, the devil we know.
Staff opinion columnist Carl M. Cannon also is Washington editor of RealClearPolitics.com.
The articles title caught my attention: Higher education falling behind on diversity [Opinion, April 3]. Its author, Mildred Garcia, president of California State University, Fullerton, is a highly regarded educator with an impressive record of involvement. I was eager to learn how diversity might improve higher education.
The central features of Dr. Garcias views are clearly articulated. The following excerpts describe her concerns: Underrepresented groups continue to be impacted by inequitable access to academic success. Since the majority of our students grew up in different cultures, navigating [the] path can prove difficult, leading to an achievement gap between underrepresented students and their white peers. [It is] our responsibility to have diversity it is paramount for social progress for all students hoping to succeed in a rapidly evolving global society.
I admit Im unconvinced. Dr. Garcia refers to inequitable access to academic success, but I interpret academic success as successfully completing a course of study by mastering the subject matter a detail her article fails to address. As for achievement gap, we must expect some students will perform better than others. This is simply a matter of scholastic aptitude another subject she ignores. Finally, she stresses the importance of diversity as a measure of progress. It seems, rather, that for an educator, learning should be foremost. But the most glaring discord is her inference that education is a collective process, whereas, in reality its a singular endeavor.
One thing cannot be disputed: Mildred Garcia is the university president not I. Her attitudes obviously reflect what is now regarded by the educational establishment as fundamental. Im convinced that education, at all levels, is no longer devoted to the subject of learning, as it once was, but rather to involvement in the political process and revenue generation. In short, its big business, exemplified by charter schools owned and operated by hedge funds, school luminaries with six and seven-figure salaries and academic policies formulated under the guidance of union officials.
A final thought: The real problem with the universities is not diversity. Its that there are thousands of inept and unmotivated students who have no reason to be there.
Al Jacobs
Laguna Beach
Despite 40 years of experimenting with affirmative action in higher education, no data shows it has been effective. Yet progressive educators like Mildred Garcia continue to promote the same tired solution to the widening achievement gap. She would choose a student application that says my grandfather was born in Mexico over one with better grades and test scores if the applicants grandfather was born in Korea or Ireland.
A better solution would hold accountable the staff and teachers who are paid to operate our dreadful public schools, grades K-12, and the union establishment that speaks for them. Minority students from lower socioeconomic families fare particularly poorly in our public schools, and these students enter higher education, if at all, unprepared. The union establishment uses its wealth and power to protect the status quo with no regard for its adverse effect on underprivileged minorities, and it pays progressive politicians to remain complicit in this strategy. Mildred Garcia, who is appointed by these politicians, enables them by remaining silent about the role of the union establishment in blocking essential public school reforms. Shame on her.
Robert Loewen
Laguna Beach
The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that racial quotas cannot be used as part of the admissions process at our nations universities. Yet, Mildred Garcia promotes the use of racial quotas for her faculty and staff. Placing race ahead of competence when hiring is clearly a racist policy. No one should ever have to question whether a member of the faculty is there primarily because of their race. Diversity created by the use of quotas leads to weakness, not strength.
Tom Yunghans
Fullerton
Southern Californias reliance on natural gas has grown increasingly clear as utilities warn of possible electricity blackouts this summer after the massive Aliso Canyon methane leak took the regions largest gas storage field offline.
Nearly 100,000 tons of methane escaped from the Southern California Gas Co. field in northern Los Angeles County, forcing the evacuation of thousands of families.
The leak, which began in the fall, was stopped after 16 weeks, but the long-term fallout, including possible power shortages, is just starting to reverberate. Legislators are pushing for tighter regulations. Environmentalists are calling for California to quickly shift from fossil fuel energy to nonpolluting renewable sources.
This is really going to be a wake-up call for a lot of folks when they realize how reliant we are on natural gas, said Tim OConnor, the director of the Environmental Defense Funds California oil and gas program.
The latest worry is that electricity demand will spike on especially hot days, and power-generating plants will have too little gas available to meet Southern Californias air conditioning and other needs. Last week, state energy regulators warned the region was at risk of up to 14 days of blackouts in the hottest months.
Also last week, SoCalGas said it planned to partially resume storage in Aliso Canyon by the end of the summer. Friday, a group of energy regulators, energy providers, government officials and others met to discuss how to ensure energy reliability this summer.
We have said all along that we will not reopen Aliso Canyon until we are confident it is safe to operate, said SoCalGas Chief Operating Officer Bret Lane.
The potential blackouts this summer would be different than the outages during the energy crisis in the early 2000s. Then, the problem was too few power plants to meet increased demand. And some power producers also gamed the system to boost electricity prices by leaving power plants offline.
Today, there are generally enough Southern California power plants, but they rely more heavily on natural gas than other regions of the country, which draw on a larger array of fossil fuels, including coal. The closure in 2013 of Southern Californias nuclear power plant, San Onofre, also increased reliance on natural gas.
The amount of electricity generated by natural gas in California has roughly doubled since the 1980s, according to state energy commission data.
Electricity generators here order gas from distributors the day before they burn it, said Colin Cushnie, Southern California Edisons vice president of energy procurement and management. If they incorrectly predict how much gas theyll need, they can rely on the gas stored in fields like Aliso Canyon, which provide flexibility for grid managers.
With Aliso Canyon unavailable because of ongoing environmental and safety tests, SoCalGas, which supplies utilities, independent power generators and commercial and residential customers, has at least temporarily lost about 50 percent of the amount it can store. Theres no comparable option to Aliso Canyons 86 billion cubic feet storage capacity, which as a practical matter could never be replicated with man-made storage tanks.
Another driver of increased natural gas demand has been the need for more peaker generation plants as California has shifted to renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, officials say. Electricity from renewable sources generally must be consumed immediately. By contrast, natural gas can be stored and burned whenever needed, allowing utilities to quickly fill gaps in the power supply when the sun fades and the wind stops.
Our natural gas-fired power plants in California are the shock absorbers of the electric grid, Cushnie said.
Edison, which supplies most of Orange County with electricity, uses natural gas to generate at least 27 percent of the electricity it delivers to customers. Renewable sources make up 24 percent, nuclear 6 percent and large hydropower 3 percent. Forty percent comes from a vast wholesale market and is not traceable in terms of how it is generated, Cushnie said.
San Diego Gas & Electric, which serves some of southern Orange County, doesnt burn gas stored at the Aliso Canyon facility. But any shortage in natural gas supply could reverberate through the grid and affect customers in San Diego and southern Orange County, said SDG&E spokeswoman Allison Torres.
The utility doesnt have major gas storage facilities, even though the fuel is used to generate nearly half of the companys electricity.
For many environmentalists, the Aliso Canyon leak and the threat of blackouts heighten the urgency to wean California off fossil fuels.
Natural gas was seen as the bridge fuel between dirtier sources such as coal and fuel oil and the clean, renewable sources environmentalists hope will eventually supply the vast bulk of the energy needed on the state grid. Last year, the state set a goal of getting 50 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
But there also has been a major investment over the past 15 years in new natural gas power plants, pipelines and storage facilities, driven by a surge of cheap domestic natural gas uncorked by the shale boom. That has built political and business pressure to maintain gas as an important power source, said Sachu Constantine, policy director at the San Diego-based Center for Sustainable Energy.
And that motivation can prolong the use of natural gas beyond when the bridge should end, he said. What we need right now is a steady, gradual, constant whittling away of our dependence on natural gas.
In some ways, the Aliso Canyon experience flipped the traditional axiom that fossil fuel energy is reliable and renewable energy isnt, Constantine said. Hour by hour, natural gas is more dependable and can yield power exactly when its needed, he acknowledged. But over the long term, supply chain disruptions like those now facing Southern California demonstrate that ultimately renewables are a more reliable source of energy.
SoCalGas officials, however, believe that natural gas will continue to be needed to balance the inconsistencies of ever more popular renewable energy sources and that technological advances will reduce carbon dioxide emissions from natural gas. They also believe that alternative sources of natural gas, such as landfills, farm animals and algae, will be cleaner and play a bigger role in meeting future supply needs, the company says.
Technology will demonstrate that natural gas is a foundational fuel, not just a bridge fuel, for a clean energy future, SoCalGas spokesman Paul Simonds said in an email.
Contact the writer: aorlowski@ocregister.com. Twitter: @aaronorlowski
A Taiwan-born Navy officer who became a naturalized U.S. citizen faces charges of espionage, attempted espionage and prostitution in a highly secretive case in which he is accused of providing classified information to China, U.S. officials said.
The Navy examined the charges against Lt. Cmdr. Edward C. Lin in a preliminary military justice hearing on Friday. The service did not release his identity, but a U.S. official disclosed it Sunday under the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the case. Lins connection to the case was first reported by USNI News.
The Navy, which has not identified Lin by name, said the officer is assigned to the headquarters for the Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, which oversees maritime patrol aircraft such as the P-8A Poseidon and P-3C Orion spy planes and the MQ-4C Triton surveillance drone.
A heavily redacted charge sheet released by the Navy states that the officer faces two specifications of espionage and three specifications of attempted espionage. He is accused of communicating secret information with intent or reason to believe it would be used to the advantage of a foreign nation, hiring a prostitute for sex, committing adultery by having sex with a woman who was not his wife, not disclosing foreign travel to the U.S. government as required, and lying about it after the fact.
It could not be determined who is serving as Lins legal representation from the charge sheet released by the Navy. The military typically discloses the identity of a service member who faces a preliminary Article 32? hearing like the one involved in this case, but the officers name was redacted from the charge sheet released afterward out of consideration for the service members privacy, said Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins, a Navy spokesman.
Prior to a decision for the referral of charges, we are unable to identify the officer at this time, Hawkins said.
The top flag officer overseeing Lins case as convening authority is Adm. Philip S. Davidson, the commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk. Lin is being held at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Chesapeake, Va. He was arrested about eight months ago, Newsweek reported Saturday.
The case remains under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the FBI. Spokesmen for senior Navy officials, including Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations, declined to comment on Sunday.
About 200 residents gathered to hear a developers proposal for the current site of the Orange County Museum of Art during a study session at Thursdays Newport Beach Planning Commission meeting.
At 295 feet, the proposed 25-story condominium tower near Fashion Island dubbed Museum House would land in the top five of the tallest buildings in the county if completed.
The building would have 100 units for sale, spanning from 1,750 to 4,950 square feet. There would be 238 parking spaces, the majority subterranean. The developer says two-thirds of the property would be open space.
The museum announced in 2008 it would relocate to a now grassy parcel at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, which was donated to the institution. The museum plans to sell the property back to the developer Related California. The timeline hasnt been announced.
Related California has done upscale projects of this type on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica and The Century in Century City.
The applicant presented a presentation, where it asserted that it didnt think the project would require a major general plan amendment change, triggering the citys Greenlight Initiative, which requires a vote of the people for certain projects.
Dozens of residents spoke for and against the project, some asserting it was premature for Related California to make such arguments. Staff couldnt say if it would require a major general plan amendment change, but did say the project would have to rezoned as multi-unit residential, changing it from private/institutional among other approvals.
Sherry Bower, a Newport resident who previously worked in real estate for 35 years, said she thought the project is too big; its too tall. She thought a vote of the people should be considered because the spirit of the law is letting residents have a voice.
Related California representatives showed drone images taken from different areas near Fashion Island, showing how the building would look from a distance. They also showed shadow studies, asserting that there would be minimal effect on nearby buildings for most of the year.
They said although the building seems tall, it doesnt necessarily stand out among the high-rises that surround Fashion Island. They said such scale was in 1960s planning documents for the center. They pointed to other neighboring buildings, such as one at 520 Newport Center Dr., which stands at 315 feet, and another at 630 Newport Center Drive thats 294 feet.
Anita Mishook, who has been a museum volunteer for 11 years, said the project would increase the local property values.
This building would be state of the art have every bell and whistle, she said. This is a quality project and I dont think we ought to let it go by the wayside.
Therese Loutherback said she can see 650 Newport Center Dr., which houses bond trader Pimco, from her home in Spyglass. She felt the city should approach it cautiously.
Ill tell you that Pimco building is very high, she said. When I look at it everyday I get negative feelings.
A draft environmental impact report expects to be ready in June. Then the item could come back to the planning commission in August or September, and before the city council in October, according to staffers.
Its not exactly an October surprise, but the biggest investigative report of the year has the potential to reshape American politics no less than it already has around the world.
In an unparalleled release of documents and data, the so-called Panama Papers have thrown open for public scrutiny the secretive world of offshore accounting used in many instances by business interests with legitimate aims and traditional practices, but also by corrupt figures in public and private life trying to hide dirty money, launder cash, mask ill-gotten gains and often to evade various forms of taxation.
Although the revelations amount to little more than an embarrassment for those targeted, others have had to pay. Vladimir Putin has to tell a national television audience that the report, which didnt mention his name directly, was part of a plot to destabilize his country. In Iceland, widespread outrage triggered the resignation of Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, who nevertheless denied any personal wrongdoing.
But all eyes are now on Britains David Cameron, who has been forced to admit that he saw gains from an offshore account established by his late father. He denied his fathers fund was set up with the purpose of avoiding tax, the Wall Street Journal noted. Rather, it was set up after foreign-exchange controls were relaxed so people who wanted to invest in dollar-denominated shares and companies could do so.
Opposition figures are not satisfied. Labor Party leaders and others are demanding that Cameron make a full statement to Parliament to restore trust, with some analysts warning Cameron could be in danger of facing a resignation crisis of his own unless he does.
Which brings us to the United States of America, where, so far, the Panama Papers have not made as big of a splash as abroad. But Democrats have seized on the opportunity to mount a relatively more populist case for tightening the screws on taxes. There is no doubt that the problem of global tax avoidance generally is a huge problem, said president Obama. The problem is that a lot of this stuff is legal, not illegal. He went so far as to say it shouldnt be legal to engage in transactions just to avoid taxes, appealing to the basic principle of making sure everyone pays their fair share.
Hillary Clinton has mounted a similar response, vowing to ensure that nobody would be permitted to make off with the peoples money in her own administration. But this is a difficult development for her.
As Robert Tracinksi noted at The Federalist, the kind of thing thats all over the Panama Papers is what Hillary Clinton has been doing forever. Its how the Clintons suddenly made $100 million in the first few years after leaving the White House, with nothing to offer the business world but their political connections. Its why the Clinton Foundation got massive donations from Russian businessmen with deals that required State Department approval. More than tax evasion and outright wrongdoing is at issue.
And, as Bernie Sanders has noted, while he tried to stop the Panama-United States Trade Promotion Agreement ratified in 2012, Clinton preferred to tout NAFTA.
Panama is a world leader when it comes to allowing wealthy Americans and large corporations to evade U.S. taxes by stashing their cash in offshore tax havens, Sanders said on the Senate floor. The Panama free-trade agreement will make this bad situation much worse. Each and every year, the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations evade about $100 billion in taxes through abusive and illegal offshore tax havens in Panama and in other countries.
Now look, he says, giving voters yet another reason to rethink their support for Clinton.
It is therefore natural for Republicans especially a potential nominee like Ted Cruz to think about how they can use the Panama Papers to help create a rallying point for todays disorganized and dispirited GOP. There are perils if they dont seize the initiative. Republicans are at risk of being pigeonholed as the kind of wealthy amoralists who wave the flag in public and then rush money out of the country to unsavory destinations. Theyre also at risk of being cast as the party of people whose taxes just ought to go up in general.
In this populist season, it just wont do for the GOP to wait for the issue to go away. Instead, they should use it to direct passions including within their own party away from populist rage, nationalist bitterness and economic vengefulness.
The right way to do this is not to pretend that those emotions lack a legitimate source. Rather, it is to show that the real source of the problems laid bare by the Panama Papers is a culture of political corruption, and that the worst kinds of political corruption arise directly from the relationship between government and finance in societies where government is the most powerful employer, and the elite have a vested interest in using banks to consolidate and leverage a degree of success that their national economy is too sclerotic and suppressed to produce. The U.S. itself has become more of a patronage-driven society, wherein the quickest way to get rich is to carve the kind of prominent political position that places one within one of two worlds, and sometimes both: the international perks and privilege circuit, on the one hand, and the national investment banking and lobbying circuit on the other.
The solution to problems like these is not to destroy investment banking or tax so aggressively that nobody tries to move any of their money abroad. Free trade requires money to move across borders and not just the money of a privileged few. The goal is not for the state to make more money off of corruption, but for the rule of law to curb both concentrated venality and concentrated power.
BRUSSELS The announcement on Sunday that the plotters of last months Brussels terror attacks had originally intended to hit Paris again only heightened the growing concern among police and intelligence agencies that shadowy Islamic State networks could unleash new attacks at any time, and in other European capitals.
As intelligence experts and officials took stock of what they have learned since the Nov. 13 assaults in and around Paris, which killed 130 people, several things have come into focus. The scale of the Islamic States operations in Europe are still not known, but they appear to be larger and more layered than investigators at first realized; if the Paris and Brussels attacks are any model, the plotters will rely on local criminal networks in addition to committed extremists.
Even as the United States, its allies and Russia have killed leaders of the Islamic State, and have rolled back some of the extremist organizations gains on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State appears to be posing a largely hidden and lethal threat across much of Europe.
When Belgian prosecutors announced that Mohamed Abrini, one of the men arrested on Friday, had confessed to being the mysterious third man in the Brussels Airport bombing, it seemed to mark a victory. But it also underscored the monumental challenges that extend across borders, for Abrini was also a suspect in the Paris attacks.
There are almost certainly other cells that are active in non-French-speaking countries and that have not yet surfaced. Britain, Germany and Italy are thought to be high on the list of Islamic State targets.
It adds up to a long road ahead in Europe for law enforcement and intelligence agencies but also for citizens who are having to learn to adapt to an array of new security precautions, especially in public places.
We are not finished yet with the job of finding everyone who is in this big network of Paris and Brussels, said Jean-Charles Brisard, the head of the French Center for the Analysis of Terrorism in Paris. Every time progress is made, we add another few people to the list of people we are looking for.
It is sobering to look at the number of people believed to have some connection to the Paris and Brussels attacks: 36 are suspected of being active participants in varying degrees in organizing or carrying them out. Of those, 13 are dead, and most of the rest are in custody. A handful have been released but subject to conditions, like daily check-ins at a police station.
Others are probably lying low or on the run. What worries investigators is that many of the participants in the Paris-Brussels network were recruited by a preacher in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, Khalid Zerkani. He was tried twice in Belgium, accused of recruiting more than 50 young men to join the fight in Syria and helping to finance their journey to the Middle East. Many of those recruits were also named in those trials and tried in absentia.
There are still many people involved who were part of the Zerkani network, who were convicted in absentia at least five to 10 and we dont where they are or what they might do, Brisard said.
While they could turn out to be more minor players, they could also emerge able organizers of new assaults. Among Zerkanis recruits, prosecutors say, were Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the on-the-ground commander of the Paris attacks, and Reda Kriket, who was arrested on March 24 in a suburb of Paris. Kriket has been accused of being in the final stages of planning an attack in France involving an arsenal of weapons and explosives of an unprecedented size, said Francois Molins, the Paris prosecutor.
From the ammunition and material found it appears that a highly lethal attack was averted. Kriket had Kalashnikov assault rifles, a submachine gun, pistols, ammunition and four boxes containing thousands of small steel balls.
Four men in touch with Kriket, who were arrested in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, had in their possession 45 kilograms of ammunition, according to the Dutch Public Broadcaster, NOS. That is enough ammunition for about 2,500 rounds, which is enough to supply a number of gunmen with multiple magazines.
Krikets connection to the Paris and Brussels cells that carried out the attacks in those cities was not clear, and experts have differing views, but it raises the possibility that there are other, similar cells in France and Belgium as well as farther afield.
Western intelligence and counterterrorism officials say their working assumption is that there are Islamic State networks in two or more European countries in addition to those in France and Belgium.
Other Islamic State cells are highly likely to be in existence across Western Europe, preparing and organizing further operations, and awaiting direction from the groups central leadership to execute, said Matthew Henman, the head of IHS Janes Terrorism and Insurgency Center in London.
Most at risk of an attack are probably Britain and Germany, but Italy is also a potential target. Britain in particular has been mentioned by the Islamic State. The British authorities are on alert, and the threat level in Britain remains at severe, meaning that an attack is highly likely.
The Islamic States threats are in some ways easier to fulfill in France because of the large number of French-speaking foreign fighters, many of whom are European citizens from France and Belgium.
Of the foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 are from Europe. About 1,800 people have left or tried to leave France to fight in Syria and Iraq, according to recent statements by Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister. An additional 450 have gone to those countries from Belgium, according to estimates by analysts in Europe.
The announcement on Sunday that the Islamic State had aimed to strike France again came from the Belgian federal prosecutors office. Numerous elements in the investigation have shown that the terrorist group initially had the intention to strike in France again, the office said in a statement.
Eventually, surprised by the speed of the progress in the ongoing investigation, they urgently took the decision to strike in Brussels, the statement said.
In the attacks in the two capitals, a total of 162 people died and 753 were wounded.
If Junes open primary election to fill Barbara Boxers U.S. Senate seat were held today, the winner in a landslide of indifference would be Undecided and None of the Above, according to a new Field Poll.
Attorney General Kamala Harris maintains a solid lead among the top candidates, but almost half of California voters still have no preference less than two months before Junes primary.
This is the second time a U.S. Senate race in California has been dictated by the rules of the top two primary system in which the two top vote-getters square off in Novembers general election, regardless of party and far from emboldening downtrodden Republican voters, it seems to have left them scratching their heads.
Most Californians arent even aware that a Senate race is going on, said Jack Pitney, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. The presidential race is eclipsing everything else. Plus, its not a case where Republicans have a really strong shot at winning in November.
Taken together, combined support for the two Democrats leading in the poll Harris (27 percent) and Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana (14 percent) amounts to 41 percent, still 7 points shy of the share of voters who have no preference or are undecided. The numbers have hardly budged since January.
The nonpartisan Field Poll was conducted from March 24 to April 3, among 633 respondents representing a likely cross-section of voters.
Its almost unprecedented for a top-of-the-ticket election, Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo said, referring to the lack of interest in a race that could help determine whether Democrats regain control of the Senate.
None of the three leading Republican contenders polled higher than the 5percent garnered by businessman Ron Unz, who also ran for governor in 1994 and has pushed for English-only teaching in the states schools. Unz entered the race last month, but he still tops former Republican Party chairs Tom Del Beccaro (4 percent) and Duf Sundheim (2 percent).
There are more than 30 candidates in the race for Boxers seat.
Continuing a string of victories across the West, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont won the Wyoming caucuses Saturday, a symbolic triumph if not a race-altering one in the last Democratic contest before the April 19 New York primary.
Sanders beat Hillary Clinton statewide by about 11 percentage points, though the end result was effectively a tie, as each candidate took seven of Wyomings 14 pledged delegates, the fewest any state had to offer. Clintons nationwide lead remained at 219.
But after Sanders recent big victories in Washington state, Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Hawaii and Wisconsin, it was more evidence of Clintons weaknesses among white and liberal voters as the race moves to major primaries in New York and elsewhere in the Northeast.
We just won Wyoming, Sanders said, pausing unexpectedly while speaking at a rally at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center in New York.
His supporters leapt to their feet and gave him a standing ovation. He thanked Wyoming voters, but said with a smile, There are probably more people in this room than there are in Wyoming.
It was the only contest of the day for the Democrats. In Colorado, Republicans were finishing the final round of voting at their state convention in Colorado Springs. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas clinched a majority of the states 37 national delegates by Friday night.
Cruz, the only candidate to speak at the convention, received a rousing reception Saturday as he tried to gain as many of the remaining delegates as he could. Its easy to talk about making America great again, he said, taking a dig at his rival, Donald Trump, who had won no delegates in Colorado up to that point. But the real question is, do you understand the principles and values that made America great in the first place?
Like Sanders, Cruz still trails the front-runner in his race, Trump. And the campaign now moves to territory likely to be far more favorable to Trump.
Though Sanders was favored in the Wyoming Democratic race, Clinton had endorsements from more elected officials, as she does in most states, and the states four superdelegates are supporting her. In 2008, she lost to Barack Obama in Wyoming by 24 percentage points.
The contest was exactly the type she struggles in. It is mostly white, and it uses a caucus format. Clinton did not campaign in Wyoming, choosing instead to devote time and resources to delegate-rich New York and Pennsylvania, which holds its primary April 26.
President Bill Clinton did appear on his wifes behalf. On a stop in Cheyenne, he talked about the need for clean energy and a transition away from coal and other fossil fuels, as 500 Wyoming coal workers faced being laid off. A protester outside held a sign that read, God, guns and coal made America great.
Clinton spoke about the layoffs. Just think about the jobs that would be created in Wyoming if we decided to maximize your capacity to export wind as you export coal, he said.
The former president seemed acutely aware of his wifes chances in the state. There are a lot of young college students who have been very enthusiastic about her opponent because he promises free tuition for everyone, he said. (Sanders has proposed free tuition at public colleges.)
If you read the fine print, he said, the free tuition comes two-thirds from the federal government and one-third from the state. He said it was unrealistic to expect the states Republican governor and Legislature to support the program.
Sanders showed up in Wyoming, holding a rally Tuesday in Laramie, where he delivered his victory speech after winning the Wisconsin primary.
I believe we have an excellent chance to win New York and a lot of delegates in that state, Sanders said in Laramie.
Referring to his large deficit among superdelegates, the party leaders and elected officials who have overwhelmingly backed Clinton, but who could still change their minds, he said: I think a lot of these superdelegates are going to be looking around them. And they are going to be saying, Which candidate has the momentum?
James King, a political-science professor at the University of Wyoming, said the state was a good fit for Sanders.
He really has to, I think, at each success build on another success, and he is running out of states, obviously, King said.
Sanders missives about a corporate-driven political system touched a nerve among Wyoming voters like John Hess, a 28-year-old veteran who spoke up for Sanders at Sheridan Countys caucus and sounded not unlike the candidate himself.
How can an average working citizen make an informed decision about health care, he asked, when the for-profit health services industry is blasting ideals on your TV and radio that support their own profits over ideals that would increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the health care industry?
Clinton received a handful more votes than Sanders did in that caucus, held at the Sheridan County Fairgrounds exhibit hall, the site of many local 4-H and rodeo competitions.
We live in a very complex world, internationally and nationally, and we need a representative for our country who has the kind of experience and understanding of that complexity, Michelle Sullivan, a daughter of former Gov. Mike Sullivan, said as she spoke up for Clinton. I think she has that.
Police have arrested a 22-year-old man suspected of stabbing another man to death at a house party in Santa Ana early Saturday morning.
Officers were called to a home at 2837 Edinger Ave. where they were told a stabbing had occurred, according to a statement from the Santa Ana Police Department.
When officers arrived they found 19-year-old Bryan Alverto Torres injured with several stab wounds to the upper torso. He was taken to UCI Medical Center where he later died. A man, identified by police as Nicholas James Tadlock, was detained trying to flee the scene.
Investigators discovered that there were many people at the party when a fight broke out in the driveway and Torres was stabbed.
Tadlock was arrested and booked on suspicion of murder.
Investigators are trying to find anyone at the party who may have witnessed the fight. Anyone with information is asked to call Santa Ana police homicide detectives at 714-245-8390.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7865 or afausto@ocregister.com
Sumo Sato was feeling battered from three days straight of chemotherapy that pulsed through his body, trying to fight the cancer in his colon and stomach.
But when then Tahitian music started playing at a luau held in his honor Saturday, he couldnt help but stand up and shake his body side-to-side with the hula dancers.
I was feeling so down and out. I felt good after that. I needed to get my blood going, said the burly, bald-headed Hawaiian, who has a white beard that stretches down to his chest. It was healing for my soul.
God uses healing in the community, he said. Not only for me, for a lot of people who felt the love, and thats going to heal all of us.
Sato, a surfing pastor from Huntington Beach, was the guest of honor at a Luau of Love held at Don the Beachcombers, where early estimates show 850 people attended and at least $15,000 was raised for medical expenses. One by one, as people entered the party, Sato stood up to give hugs and take photos with supporters.
Sato found out two month ago that he had colon and stomach cancer, his second bout with cancer after beating throat cancer years ago.
It was crazy. I dont even know where to begin, he said after the event. I was just overwhelmed. I think theres so much good in the community.
The event was put on by surfing commentator Rick Rocking Fig Fignetti and girlfriend Andrea Roberson. Fignetti said people donated countless items for an auction, everything from surfboards to paintings of Sato, one sent from a surf artist in Ireland. Pro surfers like Sunny Garcia, Chris Waring and Brett Ettinger mingled in the standing-room only crowd, and people flew in from Hawaii for the party.
It was like a Hawaiian party in California. It was everything from the heart and soul of everyone who was there, Fignetti said.
Huntington Beach Marine Safety Lt. Claude Panis rallied his band Lifeguard Band 906 to perform, playing 80s rock to get the crowd dancing.
Sato serves as the Huntington Beach Marine Safety Chaplin, counseling lifeguards any time theres a serious call or tragedy, Panis said.
He has dropped everything to come down and take care of us, has been there to minister to us, he said. Its our time to step up and take care of him. We love that guy so much.
Satos journey started in Hawaii, where he was raised in a house with more than 20 relatives. He was a trouble-maker, he said, until a missionary approached him and told him to accept Jesus as his Lord and savior. He felt an instant transformation, he has said.
He attended Bible college in West Covina, shuttling back and forth from California to Hawaii, where he helped open several Hope Chapels. He moved back to California in 1990 to get his Master of Divinity degree.
He was living near Wrightwood and had to drive two hours to get to the waves, but then met the Ettinger family, which includes pro surfer Brad Ettinger. In 2011, they formed the church he oversees now, H20.
Satos role in the surf community can be an emotionally difficult one, as hes often called on to officiate at paddle-out ceremonies when a surfer dies. He addressed the crowd of thousands who showed up when three-time world champ Andy Irons a friend of Satos from Hawaii died in 2010. When Surfline founder Sean Collins died, Sato was the one who comforted thousands of mourners.
Sato is usually found on his 12-foot surfboard charging waves on the north side of the Huntington Beach pier. He hopes to get back on his surfboard and continue his ministry, which he runs out of his home.
Hes thankful to everyone who stepped up to show their love and support during his hard time.
Words cant express my gratitude to them and Huntington Beach and everyone who worked so hard to put it together, Sato said of the luau. The gathering of the people and the spirit that was in there It gives me even more to fight.
Contact the writer: lconnelly@ocregister.com
TUSTIN They got connected because of the dogs.
But they stayed connected because of the empathy.
Specifically, because of Tustin Police Officer Melissa Trahans empathy for the plight of Pauahi Nichols, and countless others struggling to stay off the street.
Its why Trahan who grew up in a family that sometimes relied on welfare is so good at her job as Tustin PDs Community Impact Officer.
Trahan is a cop who solves problems, not just crimes.
Problems like the ones faced by Nichols.
THE MEETING
Their initial meeting went like this:
About two years ago, Nichols looked out the window of the Tustin motel room that she and her family of seven were calling home and saw a cop looking over her truck.
Nichols had two dogs back then. Both were inside of the truck.
Nichols, 62, raced outside to tell the officer that, no, she wasnt abusing the dogs; theyd had five walks that day.
But the motel had a rule about dogs, Nichols said, and, besides, between the kids and grandkids, the single-bed room was maxed out.
Trahan, 47, noticed that the animals looked well-fed, so she cut Nichols a break.
But she wanted to know more.
Why were so many people in one room? What happened?
Nichols explained how her husband died and, a year earlier, theyd lost their Huntington Beach house. Now she had a daughter and a daughter-in-law with her, along with their four kids.
Trahan left that day, but she was back soon enough. She started checking in on the grandmother and her crew. She brought small things when she came, stuff to help with their lives and their dignity.
Trahan also brought help, connections to community resources available to people struggling to get on their feet. She also eventually helped them get into a better room, one with three beds and a kitchen, so the family can cook and save money and not sleep on the floor.
Over time, Trahan and Nichols became friends.
On a recent day, Trahan went back to the motel to visit Nichols.
As she arrived, a middle school-aged granddaughter jumped up from the truck where she was studying to give Trahan a hug. And as Trahan stepped inside the room, Pauahi Nichols beamed.
Look at this giant kitchen, Pauahi Nichols said. I can cook now. We can save more money.
Nichols takes care of the surviving dog (a 10-year-old named Keala) and the grandkids. Her daughter and daughter-in-law work.
Still, its Trahan that Nichols credits for helping the family get out of a spiral that seemed endless.
Trahan initially connected them with resources to get them back on track. Beyond that, Trahan didnt forget about them; she stuck around and helped.
She cared.
At Easter, for example, Trahan stopped in on the family, bringing baskets for the kids, along with some towels and blankets.
As community impact officer a job shes held for about four years Trahan is tasked with helping people who frequently call Tustin police. She encounters crimes, of course, but also runs into many others seeking help for issues ranging from homelessness to hunger.
So Trahan helps people like Nichols because its a routine part of the job.
But shes great at it because she treats that help as anything but routine.
Melissa goes above and beyond by getting to know the people and getting involved in their lives, said Doug Hellman, admission manager for a program at Village of Hope that helps people transition from chronic homelessness to more stable lifestyles.
She knows how to get people out of the homeless rut, Hellman added.
Thats normally something a counselor and therapist does. For her, instead of just enforcing the law, its, How can I help these people change?
Thats gold.
SHE GETS IT
Trahan knows about welfare.
Growing up in Westminster, with a sister and a single mother, the family often needed it to get by.
But she also knows about success and hard work.
Trahan was an athlete growing up, playing volleyball and running track. She held the school discus record (110 feet) when she graduated from Orange High.
She went to Cal State Fullerton, the first in her family to attend college, and later joined the U.S. Air Force.
After serving as a medic for four years, Trahan left the service, worked as an X-ray technician and went back to school at Golden West College.
There, she met a student who had a job with the Los Angeles Police Department, Jim Katapodis. He would go on to be mayor of Huntington Beach and the man who persuaded Trahan to become a cop.
Trahan was at the LAPD for eight years, starting in South Central. But after having her second daughter, she decided to look for a job in Orange County. She started with Tustin Police as a reserve in 2003, and three years later was hired on as a school resource officer.
I think I recognized from childhood that you need to be compassionate toward people, Trahan said.
Whenever I arrested someone, I would ask them, How did you start getting into (trouble)? I always felt like I wanted to know what the back story was.
I so easily could have gone down the wrong path. It always comes down to choices. Thankfully, I made the right choices.
Nichols says shes happy Trahan chose to help her. It was a chance meeting that day, with the dogs, but it anchored us, Nichols said.
Were blessed in many ways, she added. Melissa is at the top of that list.
Contact the writer: 714-796-2254 or eritchie@ocregister.com or Twitter:@lagunaini
The OECD Observer online archive takes you on a journey through half a century of public policy and world progress.
Since November 1962, the OECDs experts and leading guests offer insights on the questions facing our member countries with concise and authoritative analysis, and provide our audiences with an excellent opportunity to understand policy debates and consider solutions.
Each edition of the OECD Observer reports on a core theme of the OECDs on-going work, from economics and society through governance, finance, and the environment, and articles are bolstered by tables and graphs.
Headed to the nearby supermercado, Josh Strobel and his dog, Gucci, sauntered out of their revamped Park Avenue apartment building the one that until its makeover a few years ago was shuttered and fraught with social ills.
The Idaho-born university student and bow-tied Yorkie strolled by the storefront mission that doles out daily counsel and discounted items.
They passed the man snoozing in a booth, and the expanded pharmacy that used to share the corner with Sheris strip joint.
Before scooting to class, Strobel walked his furry friend around other neighborly spots, including the family-owned convenience store finally shedding its window security bars, and another batch of apartments set to transform into trendy market-rate housing.
Few would disagree that revitalization efforts of the past few years have boosted this inner-city pocket once considered a home of last resort.
But now InCommon Community Development is sounding an alarm, fearing that the influx of investment and wealthier gentry is starting to raise rents and push out poorer folks who had an established support network in the area of Leavenworth Street and Park Avenue.
Leaders of the nonprofit based along Park Avenue are hoping greater awareness will minimize potential downsides of gentrification or a changing of the neighborhoods residents from poorer people to wealthier ones, with the attendant increases in rent and fancier services.
It began as pure benefit, said InCommon Director Christian Gray, citing the shabby-to-chic transformation five years ago of the row of apartments where Strobel lives. But as other developers and opportunities have shown themselves, it started to take more of a form of displacement.
Grays concern spreads beyond Park Avenue and into other aging Omaha neighborhoods joining the growing nationwide number of areas changing with the infusion of more affluent residents and economic development.
Gentrification has come back to public consciousness as cities have benefited from population growth and redevelopment, said Stockton Williams of the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Land Institute. Its happening probably with greater velocity and in more places in recent years.
A national analysis by Governing Magazine identified 12 Omaha census tracts (of about 135 in the city) as gentrified by accelerated shifts in housing values and education levels. That report, which was published last year and looked at years through 2013, didnt capture Omahas more recent flurry of urban redevelopment.
Even without data, area neighborhood leaders point to obviously transformed enclaves in Little Italy just south of downtown, Benson and other midtown areas such as Blackstone.
Marked by architectural and urban charm, those older places tend to be close to the citys core where increasing numbers of millennials, merchants and baby boomers have flocked in recent years.
Fueling the midtown draw is job creation at the University of Nebraska Medical Center campus and commercial activity at the $365 million Midtown Crossing campus built six years ago by Mutual of Omaha.
To be sure, experts say, the changing of the guard that accompanies gentrification isnt on its face negative: Who doesnt want a distressed area re-energized with fresh workers and a higher tax base?
But forcing residents to uproot risks further segregation and resentment that can fester into unproductive behavior, said Omaha Public Schools board member Tony Vargas, who before coming to town taught low-income students in Brooklyn areas dramatically altered by high-rent condos and businesses of that New York City borough.
The original character and fabric of gentrified neighborhoods also can suffer if longtime artists, merchants and tenants are priced out with soaring property values, said David Harris, a New York community development official who moved six years ago to the Omaha area.
InCommon worries about the shuffling around of disadvantaged families like those it is trying to reach through education and social programs based at its facility on Park Avenue near Woolworth Street.
We dont do ourselves any favors by pushing poverty from one neighborhood to the next, InCommons Gray said.
So far in Omaha, any adverse effects of gentrification have been relatively minimal, certainly not to the proportions seen in areas of Brooklyn, Portland or Chicago, says Robert Blair, an urban studies expert at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
I dont know where the break point is, he said. Its a subtle sort of thing that takes place over a period of time. That is why monitoring is so important.
David Levy, a lawyer who serves on the governing boards of the Omaha Housing Authority and Omaha By Design, worked previously as a land use lawyer in San Francisco, where he saw more severe housing constraints. Displacement locally should be watched, he said, but added that he cant see Omahas urban revival as anything but a good thing.
InCommon leaders have started to talk to groups and city officials about ways to guide gentrification and form partnerships so people of all socioeconomic levels win.
Gray said hes unsure what has happened to midtown residents who over the last few years left homes that were torn down or completely renovated. No one has kept track. Gray said he knows at least one client who landed in a shelter and cant help but wonder the fate of others.
Meanwhile, InCommon has put money where its mouth is, buying the century-old Bristol Apartments on Park Avenue before a private developer could. The goal: to keep the 64 units at about $450 a month, as rents around it often have doubled that amount.
City planners agree with InCommon that a mix of income levels could be ideal for neighborhoods, but dont necessarily agree that city government should intervene.
The dominant tool the city now uses for urban redevelopment is tax-increment financing. Gray suggested, for instance, that developers receiving such a financial break could set aside a certain number of units for lower-income tenants.
Planning Director James Thele said TIF fills the financial gap needed to pull off infill projects. He said adding more mandates likely would torpedo many of those efforts.
Furthermore, Thele said, he doesnt see a problem at this point with gentrifying neighborhoods. Most of the redevelopment of urban areas, he said, has involved decaying or vacant structures and empty lots.
Should these deteriorating properties be kept in that state so rent stays low? asked Thele. That doesnt make any sense to me.
Thele said he has not seen substantial displacement, though he acknowledges that no one has kept a tally.
Rather than messing with a free market, Thele said he believes the best route to maintaining affordable rents in gentrified areas is with initiatives such as InCommons Bristol.
The dwindling pot of money Omaha has available for low-income housing is focused on certain north and South Omaha blocks that arent attracting private investors, said David Thomas, who directs the citys Housing and Community Development division.
The idea is to instill hope in the future of those residential pockets, and ultimately draw more outside dollars.
Thomas noted that, on the other hand, private developers today arent needing much prodding to enter areas such as Park Avenue, Little Italy and Blackstone.
Since 2013, for example, public records show that Harvest Development (also known as HD) paid $1.3 million for eight mostly multifamily properties along a few-block stretch of Park Avenue north of Woolworth Avenue.
We see it as revitalization, said Bret Cain, the companys vice president of operations. Were very happy with how things are going.
Cain declined to disclose how much the company has put into rehabbing. Harvest didnt seek public financing on those Park Avenue structures that would have revealed such detail. The firms midtown rents range from $700 to $1,800. Naturally, you get a few unhappy with the rent increase, Cain said. He said the community trade-off is updated housing with green space.
Harvest is about to open the new Ekard Court at 617 S. 31st St., where 27 beat-up apartments once were. That $3.6 million project, which brings 36 luxury apartments, was assisted by city-approved tax-increment financing.
While Harvest has revived properties elsewhere in the city, its recent purchase of an old Park Avenue laundromat for a headquarters portends continued focus in transforming midtown buildings into market-rate apartments.
It is not alone.
Private developers including Milestone Property, Bluestone Development and Uptown Urban Dwellings have jumped on the multimillion-dollar midtown redevelopment bandwagon. Urban Village Development, a pioneer in the Park Avenue area, continues to grow its inventory.
Farther west, nearer the medical center campus, GreenSlate and Clarity Development companies have led more than $40 million in investment in the once-bleak Blackstone business district.
That momentum started with retail revival and shifted to housing. Their latest venture calls for transformation of the Colonial Hotel at 38th and Farnam Streets, which most recently was a worn boarding house charging $100-a-week rents.
The plan is to return the century-old property to its roots as a fancy Renaissance Revival-style apartment structure. In doing so, monthly rents are to rise to between $850 and $1,400.
Claritys Mike Peter, who also is on the governing board of InCommon, said Omahas urban conversion projects, including the Colonial, have been obsolete properties crying out for change.
A solution that doesnt compromise revitalization, yet secures families, is creation of more affordable housing options in and around the transformation. Omaha, he said, is in a better position to do that than coastal cities that face land shortage and extreme rent-income disparities.
What people want is better housing; they dont want to just live in a certain place.
Helpful tools to create affordable housing include a proposed state low-income housing tax credit program under consideration in the Nebraska Legislature, said Claritys Tom McLeay. He said it makes better sense financially to slip in separate affordable rental housing in reviving neighborhoods than to require private developers to put low-income units in a newly renovated building.
From InCommons view, not all developers have been willing to work with it to ease negative effects of transformation.
Interviews with area residents show plenty of work ahead in blending the two income worlds on Park Avenue.
Strobel, the Creighton University student who has lived on the corridor since last year, likes the proximity to campus. He likes the dog-friendly landlord, the interior of his revamped Art Decos unit. He fully supports the street ministry next door.
But the 23-year-old pre-med student is weirded out enough by what goes on outside after dark that he prefers his wife, Alexsandra, not walk the dog alone. He said the yelling and commotion stems from people he doesnt recognize.
And hes moving after graduation.
It can get scary, he said. I dont see it as somewhere Id like to be long-term.
Kristie Eisenauer, who lives in a lesser-income apartment south of Art Decos, describes her street as two different worlds. She cant believe the rents. I mean, theyre trying to make this Beverly Hills.
Mary Ann Caniglia has outstayed most on Park Avenue. And though she considers many of the old guard her family, she appreciates changes that have pushed out bad elements.
Her family-owned Park Avenue grocery is making its own shifts adding deli sandwiches and Blue Moon to the lineup of generic beers. Caniglia, her husband and children also are removing security bars from their store windows so we can see the progress.
Said Caniglia: Were excited about another phase to Park Avenue.
Contact the writer: 402-444-1224, cindy.gonzalez@owh.com
Flyover collapse, temple fire: Do tragedies in poll-bound states become political in no time?
Feature
oi-Shubham
By Shubham
When a tragedy occurs in a poll-bound state, does it help the people more or the politicians? Apparently, it seems such occurrences help the people's cause as the political parties, including their national leaderships, do not take the risk of ignoring the people no matter how localised an event is. [Over 100 killed in Kerala temple fire]
But actually, it is the other way round as the tragedy and the media coverage that follows give ample opportunity to the political parties, particularly those looking for an opportunity to cement their place in the states where they have not been traditionally strong. [Over 20 killed in Kolkata flyover collapse]
A tragedy becomes a bonus opportunity for political campaigning.
We have seen it both in Kolkata and Kollam in last 11 days since both cities are located in two poll-bound states where the mercury of electioneering is rising as fast as the heat. [Kerala temple fire: No lessons learnt from Malanada incident]
Modi took stock of situation in Kolkata from US, Rahul rushed to spot
In the wake of the collapse of an under-construction flyover in Kolkata on March 31 which led to the death of over 25 people, almost all parties plunged into the fray to extract the maximum political mileage.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi took stock of the situation from the United States where he was then, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi even visited the spot and met those injured in the hospital. [Kollam temple fire: PM Modi announces compensation]
The top leaders apart, even local ones didn't spare any opportunity to make full use of the 'scope'. One Congress leader was even seen inspecting the place with a party flag draped around him.
Kerala tragedy, too, gives a scope to BJP, Cong top brass to reach out to state people
In Kerala, too, the Puttingal Temple fire tragedy has created a big opportunity for the right-wing fanatics to encash the temple sentiments. Twitter was already abuzz with thanking the prime minister for visiting the temple soon after the tragedy and blamed the UDF government of the state for 'appeasing the minorities and not taking care of the majority'.
In a state like Kerala which has become highly polarised, this is a perfect opportunity for the saffron camp to make a psychological impact by rushing in with all help and assistance.
PM's visit to the spot will do wonders for Kerala BJP
The PM's visit to the spot, something he perhaps would also have done had he been India when the flyover collapsed in Kolkata, will do wonders for the BJP cadres and take the winds out of the sails of both the UDF and LDF. Till now, the political fight is less open in Kerala compared to what happened in Kolkata but one can certainly feel the competitive mood.
But what about the administrative callousness that leads to these disasters?
But apart from the political strategising, do these tragedies have any aftereffect once the election gets over? Do we really care about the violation of norms and the administrative failures that mostly lead to these disasters? [Fireworks displaye despite restrictions]
Human life is lost cheaply in this country under almost all governments, because of administrative callousness. But every time, a disaster gets reduced to a political blame game with the naked desire to get the maximum political benefit, especially if it is before the elections.
Revenue official flees as ACB tries to nab him taking bribe
ACB searches properties of eight govt officials in Chhattisgarh
India
oi-PTI
Raipur, April 10: The Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Saturday, April 9 conducted searches at the residences and offices of eight government officials in Chhattisgarh and discovered disproportionate assets worth crores of rupees.
ADG of ACB Mukesh Gupta said that searches were conducted at the premises of Registrar of Ravishankar University K K Chandrakar, Joint Director of Rajiv Gandhi Shiksha Mission Hareram Sharma, Additional Director of Nagrik Apurti Nigam Dayamani Minj, CMO of Ghargoda Municipal Council Arun Sharma, Executive Engineer of Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) Shubhnarayan Pathak, Bilaspur Municipality CEO Suresh Barua and Engineer of PMGSY Arvind Rahi and SDO of Irrigation Department Anil Rahi.
During the searches at Shubhnarayan Pathak's house in Bilaspur, the ACB sleuths found Rs 40 lakh cash stuffed inside a pillow cover and dumped hidden under the roof. ACB also found that Pathak owned three houses in Bilaspur, a plot of land in Chatidih and a hotel at Balia in UP.
Chandrakar was found to possess two houses and fixed deposits of Rs 40 lakh and 20 acres land. ACB also seized documents of a restaurant, 17 plots of land and a three-storeyed building from the house of Arvind Rahi.
ACB seized documents of four houses and 20 acre farm house from the woman official Dayamani Minj, in addition to jewellery and FDs of Rs 60 lakh. ACB also seized documents related to two houses and an ash bricks factory and two cars, including a BMW, from the residence of Suresh Barua. Police also raided the house of Manoj, the driver of Abhay Barua, who is Suresh's son and seized a German-made pistol.
Manoj told the ACB that the pistol belonged to Abhay. The anti-graft agency also seized documents of two houses and a complex of 12 shops from the house of Arun Sharma. They also recovered papers of three houses and plots of land from the residence of Hareram Sharma.
The ACB also found that Sharma had invested some money in coal business through his brother.
PTI
CPI(M) has a problem with the Congress Bharat Jodo Yatra: Heres why
Arjun Singh was upset CPI-M didn't make Jyoti Basu PM: Sitaram
India
oi-IANS
By Ians English
New Delhi, April 10: CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury says Congress leader Arjun Singh never probably forgave him after his party vetoed the proposal to make Marxist veteran Jyoti Basu the prime minister in 1996.
The deceased Congress veteran was not pleased with the Communist Party of India-Marxist for not allowing Basu to become the prime minister after the 1996 Lok Sabha polls threw up a hung parliament.
This -- and more -- is revealed in a souvenir released on Saturday by the Arjun Singh Sadbhavna Foundation on the occasion of the first Arjun Singh memorial lecture. It was delivered by President Pranab Mukherjee.
The souvenir, released by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, has articles and obituaries to the Congress leader from a galaxy of politicians and his former associates.
"Arjun Singhji was probably the first senior political leader in the country who told me that it is important for me to enter parliament," wrote Yechury, now general secretary of the Communist Party of India- Marxist (CPI-M), recalling his association with Arjun Singh.
The centre-Left United Front coalition had in 1996 proposed that West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu should become the prime minister.
Hardliners in the CPI-M led by Prakash Karat vetoed the idea. The proposal was made a second time, but the CPI-M reiterated its majority decision although it was known that Basu himself was in favour of taking up the post.
Years later, a peeved Basu described the party's veto as a "historic blunder".
"Arjun Singhji probably never forgave me for the decision taken by the CPI-M central committee in not allowing Jyoti Basu to become (the) prime minister of India," Yechury said.
Yechury, in his article, does not deal with the intra-CPI-M controversy but says: "Arjun Singh played an important role then (1996) in the formation of the United Front."
After the CPI-M's 'no' to Basu, H.D. Deve Gowda became the prime minister.
In his piece, NCP leader Sharad Pawar recalled his association with Arjun Singh and talked about their differences vis-a-vis the economic liberalization policy of then finance minister Manmohan Singh.
Pawar, who was defence minister in the Rao government, says: "When Manmohan Singh was bringing in economic liberalization at a faster speed, while I supported Manmohan Singh, Arjun Singh was opposed to this."
Among others, Sheila Dikshit, former Delhi chief minister, another associate of Arjun Singh, wrote: "His (Singh's) split with the governance of P.V. Narasimha Rao was based on principles and not on a desire for self aggrandizement.
"His sincere belief was that the principles of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were being overlooked. Therefore, he took the bold step of splitting the party."
Arjun Singh walked out of the Rao government in December 1994 and formed the Indira Congress-Tiwari along with another party veteran. N.D. Tiwari.
Among others, Congress leader A.K. Antony wrote about how he worked closely with Arjun Singh to bring about the Mizoram Accord that brought peace to the northeastern state in 1986.
Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh wrote that Arjun Singh would always be his "unparalleled mentor".
Another Madhya Pradesh Congress leader, Kamal Nath, echoed the view, saying Arjun Singh had played a mentor's role in the lives of many young politicians.
IANS
"Kick us out if we don't do anything": How Modi's emotional appeal resembles that of Mamata
TMC says Shukla's resignation not to affect party; BJP welcomes him to join saffron camp
Congress would have gained had it fought Bengal polls alone: Abhijit Mukherjee
Mamata Banerjee accuses PM Modi of speaking at Matua temple with an eye on West Bengal polls
Bengal's 91-year-old 'Chacha ji' fights another election
India
oi-IANS
By Ians English
Kolkata, April 10: The Congress' Gyan Singh Sohanpal is the oldest candidate in the West Bengal assembly polls, seeking his 11th term as a legislator at the ripe age of 91.
Fondly called "Chacha ji" (uncle) by one and all, Sohanpal is contesting from Kharagpur Sadar constituency in West Midnapore district, which has been sending him to the assembly since 1982.
He served as a West Bengal minister and briefly as the assembly speaker in the past.
Sohanpal's family belonged to Punjab but migrated to Bengal in early 1900s. He joined the Congress party during the Quit India movement for the overthrow of British rule in the country.
He won his first election in 1969 in independent India.
Since then, Sohanpal has kept the Congress flag high in all electoral contests, except in 1977 when the Left Front swept to power in the state.
This time he is pitted against BJP state president Dilip Ghosh and the ruling Trinamool Congress' Ramaprasad Tiwari, but has the backing of the Left Front which has an electoral understanding with the Congress in West Bengal.
The tie-up is a democratic necessity, says Sohanpal, once a fierce opponent of the Marxists.
"Politics is about people and this tie-up is their demand and need. It is a necessity -- to oust the Trinamool," he says.
Sohanpal is proud of his amazing capacity for fighting elections and is hopeful of yet another win, hopefully the 11th.
"I have full faith in the people of Kharagpur; they will never let down Congress," he says.
To those who say he is no match to his rivals' physically exhausting campaigning in hot sun, Sohanpal retorts: "I am proud to be 91 years old and far more active than they are."
But Dilip Ghosh insists, the youth should now take over.
"It's not the age for him to work. The people of Kharagpur have already declared it's time for him to rest. I too want him to rest and bless me and let the youth lead the country," said Ghosh during one of his road shows in the constituency.
A high-decibel address by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a massive road show by Trinamool supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee have raised the temperatures in the Kharagpur Sadar constituency, which votes on Monday.
IANS
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News Flash: Govt of India stands with people of Kerala: PM Modi on Kollam
India
oi-Oneindia
By Oneindia Staff Writer
New Delhi, April 10: Get the latest national and international updates here:
6.45 pm: Government of India stands with the people of Kerala, we will help them in the best way possible: PM Modi.
I have told CM that Govt of India will help if patients need to be shifted to Mumbai or Delhi: PM Modi #Kollam pic.twitter.com/knS2H1SP9K ANI (@ANI_news) April 10, 2016
6.40 pm: Puttingal Temple Fire tragedy: PM Modi reaches Thiruvananthapuram Medical college to meet the injured persons.
#Kollam fire tragedy: PM Modi arrives at Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) Medical college, Kerala Governor also present pic.twitter.com/r0VkkEaaP8 ANI (@ANI_news) April 10, 2016
6.35 pm: INS Kabra and INS Kalpeni carrying medical supplies and medical teams dock at the Kollam harbour.
6.30 pm: BJP's Sreesanth outside Thiruvananthapuram Medical college, PM Modi to arrive shortly.
Kerala: BJP's Sreesanth outside Thiruvananthapuram Medical college, PM Modi to arrive shortly. pic.twitter.com/evBLiJ9QZT ANI (@ANI_news) April 10, 2016
6.00 pm: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi arrives at the accident site Kollam.
5.50 pm: Traditional welcome for Duke & Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William & Kate Middleton at Banganga Water Tank.
5.40 pm: Delhi Mercedes hit-and-run case: Father of the juvenile accused gets bail on personal bail bond of Rs 1 lakh.
5.35 pm: Accused Ved Prakash sent to 1 day's judicial custody for hurling shoe at Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal.
5.30 pm: PM Modi, Kerala CM Oommen Chandy and Union Health Minister JP Nadda take stock of the situation in Kollam.
5.26 pm: PM Modi visits AA Rahim Memorial Hospital in Kollam, accompanied by CM Oommen Chandy and Health Minister JP Nadda.
PM Modi meets injured persons at AA Rahim Memorial Hospital in #Kollam , accompanied by CM Chandy and JP Nadda. pic.twitter.com/vT6tVUK4qd ANI (@ANI_news) April 10, 2016
5.20 pm: Indian Coast Guard (ICG) personnels donate blood at Trivandrum Medical Hospital for victims of Kollam Temple Fire.
5.17 pm: Delhi's Civil Lines hit-and-run case: Juvenile's bail plea has been rejected.
5.15 pm: Traditional welcome for Duke & Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William & Kate Middleton at Banganga Water Tank, Mumbai.
Mumbai: Duke & Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William & Kate Middleton meet representatives of NGO SMILE pic.twitter.com/UYMbsuWvz8 ANI (@ANI_news) April 10, 2016
5.10 pm: 96 Indian fishermen from Sri Lanka and 9 Sri Lankan fishermen from India were repatriated, on Saturday, consequent to mutual agreement between India & Sri Lanka.
5.05 pm: Drought situation review of Bundelkhand: Meet chaired by HM recommended Rs 1304 Crore for drought relief to UP.
4.55 pm: PM Modi directed a high level review of drought situation in Bundelkhand, Vidharbha and Marathwada. PMO reviewed Bundelkhand situation on Saturday.
4.45 pm: PM Modi at the accident site of Puttingal temple in #Kollam for on-the-spot assessment of fire tragedy.
4.35 pm: USGS reports Earthquake epicenter was 282 km NE of Kabul in Afghanistan. Measured 6.6 on the Richter scale.
4.25 pm: PM Narendra Modi reaches the Puttingal temple accident site in Kollam.
4.18 pm: Delhi Metro services temporarily halted after #earthquake jolts the capital.
Earthquake!!!! It was really scary! I could see plants and furniture shaking at 6th floor office of Delhi secretriate. Wish all is well. Manish Sisodia (@msisodia) April 10, 2016
4.15 pm: Epicenter of Earthquake in Pakistan, 248 km N of Peshawar, measured at 6.8 on Richter Scale.
FLASH: Epicenter of #Earthquake in Pakistan, 248 km N of Peshawar, measured at 6.8 on Richter Scale ANI (@ANI_news) April 10, 2016
4.03 pm: Strong tremors still being felt in New Delhi.
3.50 pm: What a fantastic experience it was to meet the Duke and the Duchess of Cambridge,remarkable couple: Sachin Tendulkar.
3.40 pm: 11 people died, 2 injured in a car accident on NH 16 near Nakkapalle in Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh.
3.35 pm: Puttingal temple fire tragedy: PM Narendra Modi received upon arrival by Kerala CM Oommen Chandy at Kollam.
3.23 pm: We've put four teams on standby and just sent one team to Kerala for pre-hospital treatment: OP Singh (DG, NDRF).
3.20 pm: We've announced Rs 10 lakh to kin of those killed in accident, free treatment to all injured: Oommen Chandy.
Also announced Rs 2 lakh help for those seriously injured & Rs 50,000 for ones who have sustained minor injuries: Oommen Chandy #KollamFire ANI (@ANI_news) April 10, 2016
3.15 pm: Puttingal (Kollam) temple fire tragedy: We have kept teams on alert, will send more if need be: OP Singh (DG, NDRF).
3.05 pm: We're happy that he's coming to Kerala to share our grief: Oommen Chandy, on PM Modi's visit to Kollam.
3.00 pm: According to our info, 100 people dead and 383 are admitted in different hospitals: Oommen Chandy, Kerala CM after cabinet meeting.
2.55 pm: Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala): IAF chopper carrying PM Narendra Modi departs for Kollam.
2.45 pm: Kollam temple tragedy: PM Narendra Modi reaches Thiruvananthapuram.
#Kollam temple tragedy: PM Narendra Modi arrives in Thiruvananthapuram pic.twitter.com/2kH3kZYifr ANI (@ANI_news) April 10, 2016
2.42 pm: Sachin Tendulkar meets Prince William, Kate Middleton.
Prince William & Kate Middleton to visit Oval Maidan(Mumbai) to meet chidren from NGOs,Sachin Tendulkar also arrives pic.twitter.com/gwpEhbdQwd ANI (@ANI_news) April 10, 2016
2.40 pm: Puttingal temple fire tragedy: ICG Ship C-427 loaded with medical team arrives in Kerala's Kollam.
2.35 pm: Fire was contained to only one room, reason can only be ascertained after investigation: Sanjay Tomar, Fire Officer on Parliament fire.
2.26 pm: Instructed Chief Controller of Explosives (PESO) to rush to Kollam site to check on legal/illegal storage/ use of firecrackers/explosives: Nirmala Sitharaman.
2.15 pm: Kerala HM Ramesh Chennithala & State Mins Adoor Prakash, Shibu B John, Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan present in cabinet meet convened by CM Chandy.
2.10 pm: Puttingal temple fire: Kerala Cabinet meeting begins in Kollam.
2.00 pm: Important for us to look at long term solutions, few IPL matches won't make much difference: MS Dhoni on Maharashtra drought.
1.50 pm: Nitish Kumar elected as JDU President.
1.45 pm: Fire breaks out in Parliament annexe building, fire is now under control.
Fire breaks out in Parliament annexe building, fire is now under control pic.twitter.com/VGDelKFL73 ANI (@ANI_news) April 10, 2016
1.35 pm: Puttingal temple fire tragedy: Two more IAF helicopters have been dispatched from Yelahanka (Karnataka) for Kerala's Kollam.
Our sympathies are with the bereaved families. We wish early recovery to all injured people: Pakistan MoFA #KollamFire ANI (@ANI_news) April 10, 2016
1.30 pm: Pak Govt expresses its deep condolences on loss of precious lives, resulting from fire breakout in temple in South Kerala: Pak MoFA.
1.20 pm: I gave necessary instructions to NDRF DG in the morning, as soon as I received the news: Rajnath Singh, Home Minister.
1.12 pm: Duke & Duchess of Cambridge,Prince William & Kate Middleton pay tribute to victims of 26/11 terrorist attack.
Mumbai: Duke & Duchess of Cambridge,Prince William & Kate Middleton pay tribute to victims of 26/11 terrorist attack pic.twitter.com/XhVZph6Lkq ANI (@ANI_news) April 10, 2016
1.05 pm: Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi offers 'chaadar' at Ajmer Sharif Dargah on behalf of PM Narendra Modi.
Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti hamaare mulk ki mahan sufi parampara ki anokhi misaal hain: MA Naqvi reads PM Modis message at Ajmer Sharif Dargah ANI (@ANI_news) April 10, 2016
12.55 pm: An additional team of Indian Coast Guard is on its way to Kollam to donate blood.
12.50 pm: Sufficient medical facilities available here: Kerala CM Oommen Chandy on Puttingal temple fire tragedy.
12.45 pm: Kerala CM Oommen Chandy arrives at the site of Puttingal temple fire tragedy in Kollam.
12.40 pm: Centre has assured, all requisite help & cooperation will be provided to state administration: Jitendra Singh, MoS.
Centre has assured,all requisite help & cooperation will be provided to state administration- Jitendra Singh #Kollam pic.twitter.com/FFmcOK06T1 ANI (@ANI_news) April 10, 2016
12.30 pm: Rahul Gandhi leaves from his residence in Delhi, will visit Kollam & meet people who got injured in fire tragedy.
12.17 pm: I visited Trivandrum Medical College, met injured persons & had interaction with doctors too: Amit Shah in Puttingal.
12.15 pm: Indian Coast Guard dispatches 1 ship loaded with medical team to Kollam. Another team on its way via road. 1 chopper positioned at Trivandrum.
12.10 pm: BJP President Amit Shah visits Trivandrum Medical College where injured persons are being given medical assistance.
I visited Trivandrum Medical College, met injured persons & had interaction with doctors too: Amit Shah #Puttingal pic.twitter.com/R0a0DKGjLr ANI (@ANI_news) April 10, 2016
12.05 pm: 4 IAF helicopters have reached Trivandrum and are ready for the task. 2 AN32 aircrafts will take two NDRF teams from Arakkonam.
12.00 pm: Anyone found guilty will be suitably punished: Congress on Puttingal temple fire tragedy.
11.55 am: PM Modi with a team of burn specialist doctors board flight, leaves for Puttingal Temple Kollam.
11.48 am: An old hull stationed at Old Begumpet airport (Hyderabad) was being moved from Air India hanger for training purpose, says Air India statement.
11.25 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi to leave for Kollam shortly.
11.00 am: A team of burn specialist doctors board flight to Kollam, PM to leave shortly on Kollam Temple Fire.
10.51 am: The election commission of India has granted permission to the Kerala government to release financial assistance for the victims of the temple incident. The permission had to be sought due to the ongoing election process where a code of conduct is in place.
10.31 am: Unexploded dynamite sticks at the site of Puttingal temple fire tragedy.
10.25 am: A team of burn specialist doctors also traveling with PM Modi to Kerala, PM will land directly in Kollam.
10.15 am: Case registered against Puttingal temple authorities over Kollam fire tragedy.
10.00 am: Crane carrying an old AI aircraft lost balance & crashed on compound wall of Hitech club near Begumpet Airport (Hyderabad) in Bowenpally.
9.36 am: 90 people dead & 350 injured in massive fire at Puttingal temple, Kollam (Kerala).
9.15 am: Puttingal temple fire: BJP President Amit Shah cancels all his public programs scheduled in Kerala today, will visit Kollam later in the day.
9.00 am: Rajouri's Mughal road (J&K) being cleared after heavy snowfall in higher reaches of Pir Panjal range yesterday
8.47 am: Body of 1 Pak smuggler recovered by BSF, whereas dead body of the second one has been taken away by his associates, says BSF Sources.
8.22 am: 83 injured people admitted to Trivandrum medical college & 13 dead bodies have been brought here: Kerala Health Minister VS Siva kumar.
8.20 am: We're giving all possible support to the injured people, says Kerala Health Minister VS Sivakumar on Puttingal temple fire.
8.10 am: Pictures of fireworks display that caused massive fire at Puttingal temple in Kerala claiming 75 lives and injuring 200.
8.00 am: Massive fire at Puttingal temple (Kerala): Injured ppl being given medical assistance in Trivandrum Medical College.
OneIndia News
Hindu Kush quakes may have long-term impact: report
International
oi-PTI
Islamabad, Apr 10: The recent wave of tremors that have shaken the Hindu Kush regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan may have lasting impacts on the topography of areas as far afield as Islamabad, according to a media report.
The region was shaken on Friday by at least four distinct tremors, ranging in intensity from 3.3 to 5.3, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), the strongest of which was felt in parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa such as Malakand and Swat.
Dawn reported, citing PMD, that two of the quakes originated in the Hindu Kush region, while the other two were located in the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border region. All of them occurred deep under the earth's crust, with at least three of the quakes measuring over 100 km in depth.
Experts say collisions between Indian, Eurasian plates may cause areas like Islamabad to rise over time.
Over 100 seismic events have been recorded in the region over the past six months alone and some rocked the earth like a boat, while most of them passed unnoticed.
Like the four quakes yesterday, the vast majority of these events originated in parts of the Hindu Kush range located in Afghanistan and Tajikistan and were felt as far afield as Islamabad and Lahore.
The region is roughly located on top of the meeting point for the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has termed the Hindu Kush "one of the most seismically hazardous regions on earth".
However, nearly all of the recent tremors felt in the region originated deep in the earth's crust, nearly 200 km below the surface. In a report on earthquakes in this region, the USGS noted that "the Hindu Kush shares this high-stress configuration with a seismically active area in Colombia, South America".
These two regions have some of the world's highest rates of deep earthquakes. However, scientists admit that they do not know a great deal about the forces that are in play at such depths. The USGS has stated that most such earthquakes are caused by tectonic plates rubbing together.
According to a report by the National Geographic Society, the two plates are colliding at a rate of about 1.5 inches a year, pushing up the Himalayan mountain range in the process. Due to friction along the plate boundaries, the collisions are not smooth or even.
When the rocks finally give way under the strain, the plates jerk rapidly, releasing the energy that causes an earthquake. With the collision of plates pushing land upwards, nearby regions including Islamabad may gradually end up gaining altitude.
Or conversely, "some areas can start sinking too. For example, La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, is sinking lower because mountains around it are rising," Met Office Director General Ghulam Rasul was quoted as saying.
PTI
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BOISE, Idaho You don't need to recognize the birds by their song, like Terry Rich.
You don't need to wow your friends with a 1-second identification of a fast-moving duck, like Kathy McCoy.
You don't need $2,000 binoculars or a $1,000 camera.
To become a birder, all you need is an appreciation of nature and to pay attention with your eyes and your ears.
"You just see so much more when you know what they are," McCoy said. "It sparks curiosity."
"And then," Rich said, "you look for more yet."
The Treasure Valley has a bustling bird scene with hundreds of species to find, an abundance of parks and wildlife areas to search (not to mention your backyard) and a devoted group of birding enthusiasts who are sharing their passion with schoolkids through several outreach programs.
Heidi Ware of Boise State's Intermountain Bird Observatory is involved in one of the area's unique birding experiences: banding birds, including hawks and owls, at the top of Lucky Peak and allowing community members to help release them.
"As a kid, I was really into insects. I switched over to birds," said Ware, who includes "birdnerd" in her email address. "The reason I like both is they're everywhere. ... One of my passions is engaging the community in conservation. Birds are the perfect vehicle for that. You can see them in your backyard. It gives you that connection with nature. If you care about birds and protect habitat for them, you kind of protect everything else along with them."
Boise Parks and Recreation and Idaho Fish and Game have launched projects to accentuate the birding opportunities in the area.
Parks and Rec is about to print a field guide to 99 of the most common birds in Boise. The guide is available online now.
"Birding is super popular," said Jerry Pugh, community programs coordinator. "The response from people wanting to give input for this guide has been astounding. It's been kind of a challenge to wade through that stuff."
Idaho Fish and Game is in the process of updating its Idaho Birding Trail, which was established in 2005. It includes more than 170 bird-rich sites, including 40 in Southwest Idaho, with detailed information on each at IdahoBirdingTrail.org.
"It features pretty much the best birds in Idaho," said Deniz Aygen, a watchable wildlife biologist with Idaho Fish and Game.
Those programs as well as the Intermountain Bird Observatory's hands-on opportunities and the K-12 education program "Bird by Bird" serve as easy entry points.
And once you've tried birding, your eyes and ears will take more notice of your surroundings. You'll take a closer look at the birds on your daily walk or bike ride and be more mindful of the chorus of bird calls and songs that fills the air right now.
Spring birding season is just beginning in the Treasure Valley with migratory birds arriving. The peak comes in mid-May.
"May through early June is the best," said Rich, who gives a talk about birds once a month at the Foothills Learning Center. "Everything is singing. The males are displaying."
Rich has seen 3,058 bird species. He has traveled to the Amazon for birding and is going to Ethiopia this year.
He became interested in birds as a child, studied wildlife ecology and zoology in college and spent his career with the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before retiring.
"My dad was more into flowers than birds," Rich said. "We'd go out hiking and exploring. I started looking more at the birds than the flowers."
McCoy also began at a young age with a bird book and pair of binoculars readily available at home. Now she leads a Wednesday morning group outing year-round.
"I just enjoy the excuse to go out and enjoy nature and look at what's out there," she said. "And it's so easy."
For the intense birders, motivation could come from competition, the scientific pursuit or the will to get "really, really good at what you do," Rich said.
For him, the appeal hasn't changed much from when he was a kid.
"It's the discovery and exploration," he said. "It's the treasure hunt."
Group excursions
Foothills Learning Center: Terry Rich holds a talk/walk on the first Wednesday of the month at the Foothills Learning Center (north end of 8th Street in Boise). Next event is at 9 a.m. April 6. See schedule at bee.cityofboise.org.
Golden Eagle Audubon Society: Kathy McCoy leads a group on Wednesdays (meet at 8 a.m. at Janjou Patisserie, 1754 W. State St. in Boise, carpool to sites). Check the schedule on the Golden Eagle Aububon website, which includes information on weekend trips, too.
Family Birding Walk: Golden Eagle Audubon educates children with its monthly event. The next walk is at 9 a.m. Sunday at Hyatt Hidden Lakes Reserve, 5301 N. Maple Grove Road in Boise. Binoculars and field guides are available. Check the schedule on the Golden Eagle Audubon website.
Unique experiences
Snow geese near Parma: The Fort Boise Wildlife Management Area attracts thousands of snow and greater white-fronted geese for about a month every spring. The peak viewing time is mid-March through mid-April. Info: IdahoBirdingTrail.org. A birder field trip is scheduled for March 19. More info in the Golden Eagle Audubon calendar.
Catch and release on Lucky Peak: Boise State's Intermountain Bird Observatory bands hummingbirds in Idaho City during the spring and summer, and songbirds, hawks, eagles and owls on top of Lucky Peak from mid-July through October. "If you come and visit, we'll stick a little bird in your hand and you'll get to hold it before they fly off into the wild," said Heidi Ware, the education and outreach director for the observatory. Info: Facebook.com/IBOBoiseState and ibo.boisestate.edu/visit.
Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area (south of Kuna): The nearest Idaho Birding Trail blue-ribbon site to Boise features a variety of birds but is known for its raptors (eagles, hawks, falcons, others). "It's a phenomenal sight to be down in that area and hear the calls of various raptors and see them nesting," said Deniz Aygen, a watchable wildlife biologist for Idaho Fish and Game. "Courtship is starting now. ... People come from all around the world just to visit the canyon, yet many people in the Treasure Valley don't even know it's there." Info: IdahoBirdingTrail.org.
Places to explore
Places in the Boise area with strong bird-watching possibilities include Hulls Gulch Reserve (north end of 8th Street); Hyatt Hidden Lakes Reserve (near Chinden and Maple Grove); the Boise River parks, particularly Kathryn Albertson, Marianne Williams and Barber; the Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge near Lake Lowell; and Bogus Basin Mountain Recreation Area.
Birding resources
Field Guide to Boise's Birds: Boise Parks and Rec has assembled a handy guide to 99 of the most common birds in Boise. The guide is available as a PDF online (parks.cityofboise.org, then search "birds") but a 3.5-inch-by-5-inch printed version should be offered for sale in the next month. Nearly all of the photos were taken in Boise and donated for the project. Four birds have been elusive: the hairy woodpecker, bank swallow, cliff swallow and northern rough-winged swallow. If you get a shot of one of them within the city, email jpugh@cityofboise.org.
GoldenEagleAudubon.org: Southwest Idaho's chapter of the National Audubon Society has a website full of info, including a calendar of events and species checklists for Southwest Idaho and the entire state.
Southwest Idaho's chapter of the National Audubon Society has a website full of info, including a calendar of events and species checklists for Southwest Idaho and the entire state. IdahoBirdingTrail.org: Examine the trail by region or species. There are 40 sites in Southwest Idaho. The Idaho Birding Trail Guidebook is $5 at Fish and Game.
Examine the trail by region or species. There are 40 sites in Southwest Idaho. The Idaho Birding Trail Guidebook is $5 at Fish and Game. Facebook.com/SWIdahoBirders: A local group of birding enthusiasts who take field trips.
A local group of birding enthusiasts who take field trips. Idaho Birding on Facebook: Search for "Idaho Birding." The group shares bird photos.
Search for "Idaho Birding." The group shares bird photos. AllAboutBirds.org: The Cornell Lab of Ornithology offers a searchable database that provides descriptions, photos, videos, audio recordings, identification tips and other info.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology offers a searchable database that provides descriptions, photos, videos, audio recordings, identification tips and other info. eBird.org: The website collects observations of birders worldwide, creating a massive database that serves as a scouting report for excursions.
The website collects observations of birders worldwide, creating a massive database that serves as a scouting report for excursions. ABA.org: The American Birding Association is an international group of birders.
The American Birding Association is an international group of birders. NWF.org: Make your yard welcoming to birds and other wildlife through the National Wildlife Federation.
Birds in Treasure Valley
Nearly 300 species of birds are on the Southwest Idaho checklist produced by the Golden Eagle Audubon Society. Here are some notable ones:
Bald eagle: Pairs have been spotted along the Greenbelt just east of the Ram and at the Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge near Lake Lowell.
Pairs have been spotted along the Greenbelt just east of the Ram and at the Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge near Lake Lowell. Yellow-breasted chat: "The yellow-breasted chat offers a cascade of song in the spring, when males deliver streams of whistles, cackles, chuckles and gurgles with the fluidity of improvisational jazz," according to AllAboutBirds.org. "It's seldom seen or heard during the rest of the year."
"The yellow-breasted chat offers a cascade of song in the spring, when males deliver streams of whistles, cackles, chuckles and gurgles with the fluidity of improvisational jazz," according to AllAboutBirds.org. "It's seldom seen or heard during the rest of the year." Common merganser: The males have green heads like mallards while the females are redheads. They've been spotted recently in the Boise River near Barber Park. "They generally look like a mallard but they're way cooler than a mallard," birder Terry Rich said. "You'll see 500 mallards for every one of these."
The males have green heads like mallards while the females are redheads. They've been spotted recently in the Boise River near Barber Park. "They generally look like a mallard but they're way cooler than a mallard," birder Terry Rich said. "You'll see 500 mallards for every one of these." Gray catbird: They hide in dense shrubs, which makes them difficult to see. They also mimic the sounds of other birds. "You've got to know what to listen for or you'll never see them," Rich said.
They hide in dense shrubs, which makes them difficult to see. They also mimic the sounds of other birds. "You've got to know what to listen for or you'll never see them," Rich said. Great horned owl: A pair nest in the hillside along the road near the Foothills Learning Center. They have been hanging out during the day in the evergreens outside the Learning Center. The owlets (babies) will start showing themselves in April or May.
A pair nest in the hillside along the road near the Foothills Learning Center. They have been hanging out during the day in the evergreens outside the Learning Center. The owlets (babies) will start showing themselves in April or May. Mourning dove: Don't let the hoots fool you. "Everybody thinks a mourning dove is an owl," Rich said. "The owl is much louder and makes more of a 'hoo, hoo.' It's more abrupt. The mourning dove tapers in and tapers out, and it's softer."
A five-day-old baby allegedly abducted atIjagbe community, Mopa-Muro Local Government Area, Kogi,10 days ago has not been released.
The incident occurred at about 8 p.m. April 11 when the gunmen invaded the home of Mr Tosin Ojuola and at gun point, forced his wife to surrender the child to them.
According to him, he left home for church when the gunmen arrived and invaded his apartment, beat up his wife and asked her to surrender the baby at gun point.
We searched all the nearby bushes to some kilometers away, but because it was night, we could not go very deep into the bush, he told the police.
He stated that he reported the matter immediately at the Divisional Police Station in Mopa, where the police promised to investigate and search for the baby.
Ojuola said that the following morning, more villagers were mobilised to search for the baby far into the bush, including farms and Fulani settlements, but that all efforts were abortive.
He explained that the police came to his house also the following day to arrest his landlord and a Fulani man, who is a tenant.
According to him, the Police said that they were the principal suspects.
But, Ojuola said that the matter took a twist on April 14, when police invited him for questioning and later detained him in connection with the incident.
The police told me that the community leaders demanded for my arrest, claiming that the village oracle (Ifa deity) revealed that I have hand in the stealing of my own baby.
Meanwhile, before my arrest, three of the community leaders came to my house on the third day and said that they were going to make sacrifice to their gods to expose the perpetrators and recover my baby.
They asked me to provide axe, cutlass, hoe, palm kernel oil and fresh yam, which I did, and they asked me to take them to the spot where I buried the placenta of my baby.
I took them there and they did some incantations and poured the oil on the spot, and assured me that my baby would be found.
To my greatest surprise and shock, it was the same people that asked the police to arrest and detain me for allegedly stealing my own baby, he said.
Ojuola stated that the case was later transferred to the State CID at Police Headquarters, Lokoja, on Wednesday.
I have since been in police cell for seven days without food and without any hope of finding my stolen baby. My image has been tarnished.
Why would I do such evil against my own baby? I am a farmer, and a staff of Mopamuro Local Government Council, I have five children.
The stolen baby was my sixth child. I am still owing N4,000 at the clinic where I took the baby to after he was delivered at home.
I have spent over eleven years in the community, my aged parents are in the same community; I have never been involved in any crime in my life.
I am innocent; I am a devoted and committed Christian. How would I steal my own baby, to do what and for what, he explained.
I am appealing to the police to conduct a thorough investigation and fish out the perpetrators, and help me to rescue my baby because I am helpless, Ojuola pleaded.
Shade Ojuola, his wife and mother of the baby, in tears, expressed sadness over the snatching of her baby at gunpoint.
Mrs Ojuola who corroborated her husbands earlier statements, called for immediate release of her husband to enable the family to continue the search for their baby.
I am begging the police to please free my husband from cell in Lokoja because he is innocent; he can never do such a thing; he is a hardworking man, and he fears God.
We have been married for 11 years now with five children, and he loves me and all our children; I dont want to lose him, she said.
The traditional ruler of Ijagbe, Chief Amushin Adeleye, who also spoke to NAN on phone, confirmed the incident.
He, however, denied any involvement in the arrest and detention of Tosin, the father of the baby.
He said that Tosin had never engaged in any form of criminality, violence or social vice in the community.
The monarch further confirmed that the two people the community suspected after findings and consultations were Ojuolas landlord, Samson Johnson and one Fulani man, Umoru Isah.
He said that the community later reported Johnson and Isah as suspects to the police.
The traditional ruler appealed to the police to release the babys father and ensure that justice was done in accordance with the law.
When contacted, the Commissioner of Police in the state, Mr Hakeem Busari, said that he was aware of the matter.
When told that the complainant in the case, Mr Tosin Ojuola, had been in detention at the CID section, Busari expressed shock and asked for time to enable him to find out the real situation of things from the Officer in charge of CID.
However, the commissioner did not get back to NAN as promised and attempts to re-establish link with him failed as his mobile phone had been switched off.
KALISPELL Jeri Anderson was unemployed when she made the decision to enroll her daughter Emma, now 8, at Stillwater Christian School.
Emma was in preschool, attending just three days a week so she could spend some time with children her own age.
She immediately fell in love, Anderson said. It was her home away from home. She would say, If I cant be with you, Mom, at least I can be with my family at school.
Anderson, along with two other mothers of children who attend Stillwater, filed a lawsuit in December to gain access to scholarship funds administered through the state Department of Revenue. A law passed during the 2015 Legislature created a $150 income tax credit for donations that support nonprofit scholarship organizations that help pay for students to attend private schools.
Because the department collects the money, it wrote the administrative rules that dictate who can receive the scholarships. One of the rules excluded any of the money from going to religiously affiliated schools. This was necessary, the department said, because Montana's Constitution prohibits any direct or indirect appropriations or payment from the government to religious institutions or religiously affiliated schools.
On April 1 in Flathead County District Court Judge David Ortley granted the mothers an injunction, saying the department must operate as if the rule didnt exist. That could open the door for parents like Anderson to apply for a scholarship to pay some of Emmas tuition.
Stillwater is a place where Emma, a second-grader who is really into the solar system and cant go anywhere without a book, feels safe, Anderson said.
Theres usually three of them, Anderson said of the books Emma reads, all in various stages of done.
Anderson said she depleted her savings to pay for Emmas first two years at Stillwater before she found a job. Emma also received an ACE Scholarship, which provides up to $2,000 for elementary students. About 800 students applied for those scholarships the first year they were offered, and 300 ended up on a wait list.
Tuition is about $6,600 a year for elementary students at Stillwater. Every year its a step out on faith that we can do this, we can pull this off, Anderson said.
Anderson, Kendra Espinoza and Jaime Schaefer were contacted by Stillwater about working with the Institute for Justice, a Virginia-based law firm that calls itself the nations pre-eminent courtroom defender of school choice, last fall about the possibility of filing a lawsuit.
The Institute had been keeping a close eye on Montana, said one of its attorneys, Erica Smith, who testified at a public hearing last fall on the department's rules.
Smith said after the rules were adopted, she emailed every private school in Montana to start coordinating a lawsuit, and Stillwater was the one that replied first.
Anderson and Espinoza said they werent aware of the rulemaking process or the law before the school contacted them.
So far just one organization has signed up with the department to provide scholarships Big Sky Scholarships. The organization incorporated Jan. 11. Its registered agent is Sen. Kristin Hansen, R-Havre, who is consulting attorney for the organization and filed their paperwork. Hansen said she couldn't disclose the names of the organization's five-member board of directors, and they aren't listed in filings with the Secretary of State; the three director slots say "none stated."
According to the department, $1,350 has been pledged from donors to the scholarships and $3,000 has been pledged to go toward public school programs out of $3 million available for each. The department's education donations website went live Jan. 1.
Parents approach the school for a scholarship, and the schools make the connection with scholarship organizations like Big Sky Scholarships. Hansen said about 34 schools are going through the affiliation process, and once thats complete parents can start applying for funds.
An estimated 8,119 students attended private school in Montana during the 2014-15 school year, which is up from 7,757 in 2012-13. There were 144,532 students enrolled in public schools in 2014-14, up from 142,908 in 2012-13.
Not everyone agrees with Ortleys assessment of the rule.
Eric Feaver, president of MEA-MFT, the union representing teachers and other public employees, said the rule is exactly what the law requires. He said the ruling has a political flavor and said the Institute, a group he calls hard-edged and determined, could have picked the venue for the judge.
District Court opinions get appealed all the time, he said. If youre talking about a constitutional question, you dont want it to stop there.
Feaver compared the injunction to like winning the first quarter. Theres a whole game yet to be played.
Ortley's ruling said a tax credit is not an appropriation and therefore can go to a religious school, but Feaver said because the credit results in a reduction in the states revenue stream it is an appropriation.
He also questioned the power of a poll of state legislators last fall that set the stage for a lawsuit. After the department published its draft rules, more than 20 legislators objected to the first rule. That triggered a poll, the first since 2015, and the results found 88 lawmakers agreed the departments rule doesnt fit the intent legislators had when they passed the law. Fifty-one said the rules were fine and 11 didnt respond.
The poll couldnt change the rule, but it was published with the rule, and its results could be and were used as evidence in a lawsuit.
Feaver said the bill was rushed through ,and it was never clear the Legislature knew what its intent was. State Sen. Llew Jones, R-Conrad, who wrote the bill, said the rule didn't meet what he intended.
How powerful is a post-legislative survey of intent? Feaver asked. It leads to corruption of the legislative process, indicating legislative intent after the fact.
The argument for Feaver boils down to if Montana will support and enhance public schools or support sectarian schools at the expense of public schools.
Theres leavening power in public schools, where you have rich and poor, well-dressed and not, black and white, all religions, he said.
Anderson argued the tax credit doesnt take away from public schools, but just builds the pool for scholarships.
I think people realized we're just asking to be included, Anderson said. They meet the criteria to be eligible, and they just want to have their place.
Espinoza enrolled her daughters when she was employed part-time and had to work several different jobs and hold yard sales to pay tuition.
I remember driving up to the school (to an informational meeting) and thinking Why am I even doing this? I want this so bad, but theres no way I can afford this. And for two kids. I knew what it was going to cost. But I sat through that presentation and I felt God saying, Go for it, just walk on faith. And I said OK, we got this.
This is the first year Naomi, 10, and Sarah, 8, have attended Stillwater. They were in public school before, and Espinoza had done some homeschooling with Naomi.
She said the school has a "family atmosphere" and is more challenging academically.
From a values perspective, what I teach them at home I wanted that reflected in what they learn at school, too, Espinoza said. "I knew my kids needed to be pushed a little. ... I can see what they are learning now, and it is much more advanced than it would be if they were in public school."
Sarah is in second grade. After school she attends play practice Rapunzel and has an analytical mind Espinoza thinks will serve her well in math class. Naomi, her older daughter, is a fourth-grader who loves to read and write stories.
When Naomi attended public school, Espinoza picked up her backpack and found it overly heavy. She had been bringing her Bible to school and doing Bible study with kids on her own.
She wants to be a missionary, thats her big goal in life, and to nurture that here while shes little means so much to us.
Re-enrollment was in February, so the countdown is on for Espinoza and Anderson who signed up for next year to get together tuition for next year. Espinoza just started a new job, but paying tuition is still a reach, and she doesn't view public school as an option.
The thought of now going back to public school; its like deflating a balloon, she said.
Feaver said he questions why parents who filed the suit need scholarships if their children are already enrolled in Stillwater. "Obviously they can afford it," he said.
He said he doesn't oppose parents sending their children to private schools, but he doesn't want taxpayers helping foot the bill. He objected to claims that private schools offer a better education.
"A parent who says their kid is not getting what they want in public school, I can believe that. But to say that somehow none of those schools can work for their children just can't and there's no way it ever possibly could I don't buy that, not for a second."
Espinoza said scholarships help bridge the gap.
We still have to come up with a pretty sizable chunk of cash even with a scholarship, she said, but this makes it doable.
The Department of Revenue is still reviewing the decision and has 45 days to determine whether it will appeal, but Feaver believes it will.
Espinoza and Anderson are hoping the department will decide it's not worth going to trial, but they're ready for an appeal.
Theres no reason to back down," Espinoza said. "Were ready to take it all the way.
Emma wants to attend Stillwater all 12 years. So do Naomi and Sarah.
Im like, If we can swing it, if we can swing it, Anderson said.
Reprinted from Sputnik
The Panama Papers, stripped to the bone, may reveal themselves, as I have argued, essentially as an infowar operation initiated by the NSA -- which would conveniently target mostly Global South "enemies" (as in the BRICS nations) and selected, disposable, Western pawns.
In its current stage, the Panama Papers have morphed into a weaponized psyops posing as an "activist leak," straight from the Hybrid War playbook.
The relentless, expert mainstream media exposure has been at pains to portray the massive leak as "responsible journalism," yet without addressing eyebrow-raising questions on how the leak really came about; how 2.6 terabytes of data, including 5 million emails, have been selective edited; how it was obtained without encryption; how there was not a single leak while the whole hoard was being sorted out by 400 or so reporters for over a year; and how the information is being selectively released.
"Responsible journalism" gatekeepers are spinning this came from a digital musketeer; a whistleblower. Not necessarily. The leak has already sparked a credibility war between WikiLeaks and the new mainstream leakers, the heavily compromised, Washington-based, US foundations-funded ICIJ.
The NSA thesis is sustained by the fact the NSA specializes in breaking into virtually any database and/or archive anywhere, stealing "secrets" and then selectively destroying/blackmailing/protecting assets and "enemies" according to US government interests. Add to it that Ramon Fonseca, founding partner of Mossack Fonseca, is stressing, "We rule out an inside job. This is not a leak. This is a hack."
Countering "strategic threats"
The Panama Papers function as much as a precision strike as a "message" for an array of players to toe the line -- or else; after all, the leak/hack unveils a web of connections to several dozen companies, individuals and politicians across the Global South who are kind of superstars -- or aspiring superstars -- in US sanctions blacklists.
The obsessive mainstream media focus on the enemies and/or "strategic threats" to Exceptionalistan also raise eyebrows; here's how the Beijing leadership is expertly dissecting it.
The Panama Papers also happen to perfectly fit into a massive US trade deal offensive. You can read it as a reminder of the TPP-TTIP corporate power grab; if you don't join our play for US-controlled One World trade, we've got dirt on you.
It's naturally healthy to be offered at least a glimpse of the nasty undercurrents of turbocharged casino capitalism, a.k.a. "global financial system," where major banks and an army of financial sharks allow "secret" companies to park illicit and/or corrupt funds.
In parallel, it's enlightening to observe how all electronic money transactions are now totally traceable. The Panama Papers happen to come to light only a few months before an obscure global information-sharing treaty will be implemented. Whether global financial sharks will be able to circumvent it is an open question. Crucially; Panama is not part of the signatories.
On the crucial financial shark angle, over half of the companies listed in the massive leak/hack are registered in the UK -- or "Crown dependencies." Savor the sweet smell of revenge by US corporate media denouncing what it practically amounts to the British Tax Evasion Empire.
Everyone knows the City of London largely operates as a world-class money laundering racket. Yet forget about British "responsible journalism" gatekeepers getting into the heart of it. It's much more popular to blame Putin as guilty by association than to examine how David Cameron's father, Ian, chose to keep the family money (and the future Prime Minister's inheritance) away from the tax man.
Or how the President of that NATO-friendly failed entity, Petro Poroshenko, stashes his wealth not in unruly Ukraine but "protected" in the Virgin Islands. And forget about investigating the former bureau chief of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Dov Weisglass, who, like Cameron's father and Poroshenko, is actually named in the Panama Papers.
Moreover, don't except a Cayman Papers or a Virgin Island Papers -- the real deal -- anytime soon. The real elite would never let it happen.
Panama Redacted
When news headlines on the so-called Panama Papers were circulated in Western mainstream media earlier this week, the main focus was on speculation that Putin was somehow implicated in scamming millions from tax avoidance.
For more discerning viewers, the sensationalist speculations had the hallmark features of another wild-eyed smear-job. All hype and no substance, just as in many other previous attempts by the Western media to blacken the Russian leader's reputation -- based on nothing else but prejudice and innuendo. Recall the downing of Malaysian airliner MH17 and Putin's "gunslinger walk" as but two such tawdry episodes.
Despite the convoluted hype, the Russian leader was not even named in the latest files leaked from the Panama-based law firm, Mossack-Fonseca. The firm specializes in setting up shell companies for rich clients in overseas jurisdictions, thus helping these clients evade tax in their home countries.
Western media outlets predictably leapt to racy implications about Putin because, among the thousands of clients named, some apparently had a personal friendship with the Russian president. The Kremlin dismissed the speculation of financial impropriety as "more fibs" that the Western media periodically indulges in in order to smear Putin.
Turns out, however, that the seeming attempt at smear has gone awry, and instead has backfired badly, with gooey egg running off the face of British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Cameron is under fire about allegations that he may have gained personally from tax avoidance schemes that his father set up while head of an investment firm. Cameron senior ran a firm called Blairmore which was a major intermediary of the Panama-based legal outfit, setting up shell companies for other British businesses. Typically, the shell companies would be registered in British-controlled overseas territories where they paid zero tax.
Those territories include British Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. In this way, Britain's rich elite, banks and other corporations could save billions of pounds from paying taxes to the British government.
Amazingly, perhaps, these rich men's financial tricks are not considered illegal by the authorities. Although, most people would at least discern them to be unethical practice.
Premier David Cameron this week denied having any shares or trusts in overseas tax havens, and he claimed that his sole assets included his salary, savings and a family home. However, Cameron has been coy about answering directly the issue of whether he may have benefited from his father's wheeling and dealing.
When Cameron's father, Ian, died in 2010, his personal estate was reportedly valued to be the equivalent of $5 million, of which his son inherited $500,000. It was the same year that David Cameron was elected prime minister as leader of the Conservative Party.
Thus, it would seem self-evident that the British prime minister has indeed gained from the proceeds of tax avoidance through his late father's legacy. While strictly not illegal, nevertheless such a connection has politically foul whiff about it.
This scandal is not only confined to the occupant of 10 Downing Street. Several other senior members of his own party, including former ministers, have been named in the Panama Papers as patrons of tax-dodging shell companies.
Last year, too, the British Chancellor (finance minister) George Osborne was also separately implicated in tax dodging. This stemmed from his father, Sir Peter, selling the premises of the family business in London to a property developer based in the British Virgin Islands. The developer reportedly avoided paying 2 million ($3m) in tax to the British exchequer.
What is amusing in all this is that yet another lame bid to slander the Russian president has ended up boomeranging on the heads of Western governments, and Britain in particular.
Iceland's prime minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson has been forced out of office by widespread public anger over his involvement in alleged financial misconduct. Some 70 other world leaders and high public officials have also been singled out in the Panama Papers as having holdings in offshore firms.
With over 11 million files having been leaked, the financial dirt is bound to keep on mounting for weeks to come.
The heat is certainly growing under the feet of Britain's David Cameron and others members of his Tory government.
JUBA, South Sudan, Apr 8 2016 (IPS) - Facing an unprecedented economic crisis, South Sudan -- the newest nation of the world -- has urged its 12 million inhabitants to turn to agriculture instead of depending on declining oil revenues. http://www.ipsnews.net/2016/04/need-to-encourage-agriculture/
Ah, the beauty of bottom-up movements. South Sudan is on target. Grow your own food and get independent of the criminal elite existing in the halls of corporations, government, banks, and everything these people control via having loads of money.
On another front, author Michael Pollan reinforces bottom-up and local control when he states, "Yes, it is time to fire the powers that be and we, in turn, begin to govern ourselves." http://michaelpollan.com/books/
The currently operating curse of top-down power structures has led us to the decimation of the planet alongside a dumbing down of our children via "teach to the test" tactics. In essence, we are living under a curse that goes back to Genesis 1:2 when Eve (women in general) is told, "The Man shall rule over thee."
This curse is one we have bought into for the past several thousand years. Its time to say to the world of patriarchs, "No MORE!"
The Man rules over none of us. We have allowed it and, ultimately, created this mess we are in (pollution, constant war, physical and sexual abuse, etc). Top-Down management has been a prime star in this mess. We apparently don't realize we are on a planet that is relational, not top-down. All creatures together create the atmosphere of this planet that sustain plants and animals throughout the world.
We the people can do better than what we are currently doing. In the depths of our being, we don't need "experts" or "authorities." Oh, how I love to flesh out the term author-ity. Who gave whom the right to author your life? You don't believe you're being authored? Then, why do you continue to lose yourself in corporate owned media and government and thus lose yourself in surrender to their power? Why do you allow these top-down authorities to educate your children and determine how you labor? As we age, why do we hand the reins for our lives and money to these same leaches?
We did this to ourselves by allowing ourselves to be ruled over. Nowhere is this idea more pronounced than in Eric Fromm's writing Escape From Freedom. (Fromm has written several brilliant books, my favorite is Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. I believe this may have been his last book, though I see Escape From Freedom his best analysis of western culture). Fromm is exactly right. We do indeed escape from freedom. Thus we allow our children to be dumbed down in "teach to the test methods" which works primarily to keep our children brainwashed and not thinking creatively. This makes them easier to manage.
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Gold mining can be a lot like fishing.
They both involve a lot of time spent next to creeks and rivers, and neither guarantees any tangible payoff. But catching a fish isn't always the point of fishing.
"It's not about having the gold. It's about finding the gold," said prospector Mike Pung while sloshing sediment around in his gold pan at the Portland Gold & Treasure show Saturday.
This may seem funny coming from the co-inventor of the Gold Cube, a device designed to maximize the fine gold dust hobby prospectors can pull from a river. But by all appearances, it's true.
Just about everyone you meet at the Gold & Treasure Show has a different way of saying the same thing: If it's money you're after, there are easier ways to get it. And if it's gold you're after, try a jewelry store.
People put way more money into treasure hunting than they ever get out of it, said Brandon Johnson, president of the Gold Prospectors Association of America, the group behind the traveling Gold & Treasure Show. Even if you don't find gold, you can still feel good about a day well spent, Johnson said. But gold fever remains a very real thing.
Like most, Pung still remembers when he caught it.
The town was Chicken, Alaska, a former Gold Rush locale with a population in the single digits and a small, man-made creek near a campground. Here, his mother taught him to dip and shake a gold pan, and he discovered his first color (prospector speak for tiny gold flakes).
When he recounts the moment, Pung doesn't blink. This is serious business, until it isn't.
"It was about the size of a glitter from a unicorn fart," he said of the find. But it was more than enough to get him hooked.
Since then, one of Pung's favorite parts of mining has been sharing it with peers and newcomers, which he did eagerly at the Gold & Treasure Show's pair of hands-on panning troughs.
It's a far cry from the cutthroat ethos of the Gold Rush, but today's prospectors hold on to the rights that phenomenon brought as though they were an eight-ounce gold nugget. They go so far as to avoid the term "recreational mining" for it's implication that they're anything less than entitled to it.
"Recreation is a privilege," Pung said, but mining is a right, still allowed for by the General Mining Law of 1872. Many conservation groups call mining a detriment to river ecosystems, and some legislation in Western states like Oregon has sought to restrict even hobby mining.
At the thought of it, Pung prickles slightly, asserting that miners actually do rivers a service by removing heavy metals like lead and mercury and creating deep holes that are hospitable to fish.
This resistance comes from a deeply buried affection for the act of mining itself that most hobby prospectors seem to share. Pung said he treasures the experiences that come with plotting a land claim and digging in more than anything that lands in his pan.
"I have never sold a piece of gold because every single vial of it is a time capsule," said Pung. "It tells the story of the day."
Pung said he sees those memories in the varied hues of his gold samples. That first flake of Alaska color. The mother-son trip that brought him to it. The times he's been surrounded by friends at the creek, and the time one fell in.
"That's worth more than gold," Pung said.
The Portland Gold & Treasure Show continues 10 a.m.-4p.m. Sunday, April 10, at the Portland Expo Center, 2060 N. Marine Dr. Tickets are $10 and Expo Center parking is $8, and the MAX yellow line runs right to the Expo Center.
--Dillon Pilorget
503-294-5927
By George Will
PRINCETON, N.J. -- One of history's most important battles happened here on a field you can walk across in less than half the 45 or so minutes the battle lasted. If George Washington's audacity on Jan. 3, 1777, had not reversed the patriots' retreat and routed the advancing British, the American Revolution might have been extinguished.
Yet such is America's neglect of some places that sustain its defining memories, the portion of the field over which Washington's nation-saving charge passed is being bulldozed to make way for houses for faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS). To understand the gravity of this utterly unnecessary desecration, you must understand the astonishingly underestimated Battle of Princeton.
In December 1776, the Revolution was failing. Britain had sent to America 36,000 troops -- at that point, the largest European expeditionary force ever -- to crush the rebellion before a French intervention on America's behalf. Washington had been driven from Brooklyn Heights, then from Manhattan, then out of New York. The nation barely existed as he retreated across New Jersey, into Pennsylvania.
But from there, on Christmas night, he crossed the Delaware River ice floes for a successful 45-minute (at most) attack on Britain's Hessian mercenaries at Trenton. This was Washington's first victory; he had not been at Lexington, Concord or Bunker Hill. Trenton would, however, have been merely an evanescent triumph, were it not for what happened 10 days later.
On Jan. 2, 1777, British Gen. Charles Cornwallis began marching 5,500 troops from Princeton to attack Washington's slightly outnumbered forces at Trenton. Washington, leaving a few hundred soldiers to tend fires that tricked Cornwallis into thinking the patriot army was encamped, made a stealthy 14-mile night march to attack three British regiments remaining at Princeton. They collided on this field.
The most lethal weapons in this war were bayonets. The British had them. Few Americans did, and they beat a panicked retreated from the advancing steel. By his personal bravery, Washington reversed this and led a charge. An unusually tall man sitting on a large white horse, he was a clear target riding as close to British lines as first base is to home plate. Biographer Ron Chernow writes that, at Princeton, Washington was a "warrior in the antique sense. The eighteenth-century battlefield was a compact space, its cramped contours defined by the short range of muskets and bayonet charges, giving generals a chance to inspire by their immediate presence."
When the redcoats ran, the British aura of invincibility and the strategy of "securing territory and handing out pardons" (Chernow) were shattered. And the drift of American opinion toward defeatism halted.
In his four-volume biography of Washington, James Thomas Flexner said: "The British historian George Trevelyan was to write concerning Trenton: 'It may be doubted whether so small a number of men ever employed so short a space of time with greater and more lasting effects upon the history of the world.' But such would not have been the result if Washington had not gone on to overwhelm Princeton."
This ground, on which patriots' blood puddled on that 20-degree morning, has been scandalously neglected by New Jersey. Now it is being vandalized by the Institute for Advance Study, which has spurned a $4.5 million purchase offer -- more than $1 million above the appraised value -- from the invaluable Civil War Trust, which is expanding its preservation activities to Revolutionary War sites.
In today's academia there are many scholars against scholarship, including historians hostile to history -- postmodernists who think the past is merely a social construct reflecting the present's preoccupations, or power structures, or something. They partake of academia's preference for a multicultural future of diluted, if not extinguished, nationhood, and they dislike commemorating history made by white men with guns. The IAS engaged a historian who wrote a report clotted with today's impenetrable academic patois. He says we should not "fetishize space," and he drapes disparaging quotation marks around the words "hallowed ground."
The nation owes much to the IAS, which supported Albert Einstein, physicist Robert Oppenheimer and the diplomat and historian George F. Kennan. It is especially disheartening that a distinguished institution of scholars is indifferent to preserving a historic site that can nourish national identity.
The battle to save this battlefield, one of the nation's most significant and most neglected sites, is not yet lost. The government in today's Trenton, and in the city named for the man who won the 1777 battle, should assist the Civil War Trust.
George Will's email address is georgewillwashpost.com.
(c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group
Oregonian/OregonLive file photo
Hands-on educational needs outweighs fiscal caution in Roosevelt High redesign: Editorial Agenda 2016
The Portland School Board is poised to approve an eleventh-hour redesign of Roosevelt High School to include an expanded space for career and technical education and for science and technology curriculum, the editorial board writes. Despite fiscal concerns, the board is right to make the adjustment.
'Not only are programs offering science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) curriculum or targeted career and technical education (CTE) successful in engaging students and boosting graduation results, but the district has known for years how important such programs are to families in the community,' the editorial states. 'Making the changes now acknowledges the inherent ridiculousness of institutionalizing a flawed design.' Read the editorial here.
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Photo by The Associated Press
Oregon 'right to work' initiative is suddenly very relevant: Editorial Agenda 2016
A proposed ballot measure to exempt nonunion members from required contributions to the union has greater significance now that the U.S. Supreme Court has deadlocked on a case challenging such compelled contributions, the editorial board writes. The proposed initiative would address concerns that nonunions are mooching off the union by specifying that their pay and benefits would not be determined by union contracts.
'Compelling people to support positions with which they disagree is a greater affront than allowing for the possibility of free-ridership,' the editorial states. 'Not only does the former run up against the Constitution's free speech protections, but the latter does nothing more than require unions to make a case for the contributions they now may compel.' Read the editorial here.
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Oregonian/OregonLive file photo
Peter Courtney's bad leadership does not justify a recall: Editorial
Sen. President Peter Courtneys tenure has been less than impressive lately, but thats no reason to recall him as a campaign organized by Woodburn resident Matt Geiger aims to do, the editorial board writes. If voters in his district want to remove him from office, they should do so when he comes up for re-election.
'However unimpressive Courtney's recent record may be, nothing he has done falls outside of the appropriate scope of his position,' the editorial states. 'We, Geiger and others may not like the way Courtney's been doing his job, but that's what he's been doing his job. Even the role Courtney played this year in cramming huge bills into a short session fails to meet a reasonable threshold for recall, which should require at least misuse of office.' Read the editorial here.
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Photo by Beth Nakamura/Staff
Portland State trustees flunk public-meetings test in tuition vote: Editorial
In response to a disruptive protest, Portland State University trustees moved their meeting to a basement conference room where they voted on a tuition increase with only a few media members to witness the meeting on behalf of the public, the editorial board writes. The trustees audio broadcast of the meeting was insufficient to uphold public-meetings law requirements.
'Trustees understandably wanted a way to get business done,' the editorial states. 'They had provided many opportunities for students to share their objections to the tuition increase and said they want to offer more. But they flunked the test of advancing PSU's educational mission as an institution that fosters debate with their handling of the vote.' Read the editorial here.
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Oregonian/OregonLive file photo
New park, no bark: Oregon City urban forest to welcome bikes, ban dogs: Editorial
A public-access plan for Metros Newell Creek Canyon near Oregon City includes one provision that may take area residents by surprise a ban on dogs, the editorial board writes. That, despite allowances for mountain biking and other uses.
'The arbitrary decision to draw the line at dogs arises from political considerations rather than scientific ones,' the editorial states. 'There is an important lesson for dog owners here: If they want their pets to have access to Newell Creek Canyon or the bulk of Metro's 17,000-acre portfolio of parkland, they're going to have to organize and demand it.' Read the editorial here.
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City budget flap shows need to preserve auditor's independence: Editorial Agenda 2016
The Portland City Auditor is the only one of the citys six elected officials who was asked to identify a 5 percent cut to her budget, the editorial board writes. That, as well as the authority that the five city commissioners have over which programs are funded, threaten the independence that voters expect the auditor to have.
'There's still plenty of work ahead before the city's budgets are finalized,' the editorial states. 'But city commissioners should consider the value of an auditor and look for ways to increase her independence. Championing good governance requires being accountable to the voters and voters alone.' Read the editorial here.
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Photo by The Associated Press
Border town pot sales, a new middle school and youth activism: Editorial peaks
This week's peaks include the shift in revenue along the border with the legalization of pot in Oregon, the Portland School Board's decision to convert Ockley Green to a middle school this fall and the attention that students at other Portland districts are drawing to the inequity of city taxpayers underwriting bus passes for Portland Public Schools students.
'Portland should not have agreed to support the so-called Youth Pass program in the first place, the transportation of Portland Public Schools students being the responsibility of ... Portland Public Schools,' the editorial peak states. 'Spending even more city funds inappropriately isn't the solution. Eliminating all city support for the Youth Pass is.' Read the editorial peaks and valleys here.
Metro bans dogs in parks: The editorial board rightly calls for a change in policy to allow dogs in our parks. When a female bicyclist was recently assaulted on the Springwater Corridor Trail, I was reminded of the fact that as a woman there are many places I cannot visit in Portland because they are not safe for me.
I live near two Metro-controlled parks, Mount Talbert Nature Park and Scouters Mountain Nature Park, which are less parks than wooded hiking trails nestled between subdivisions. Because I am not allowed to bring my leashed dog with me on these trails, my two neighborhood parks are useless to me, meaning I am also excluded from these parks.
Nancy Utterback
Happy Valley
*
Metro bans dogs in parks: Metro is to be lauded for its prohibition of dogs, on leash or not, from the thousands of acres of public parkland it manages and maintains. Canines are the scourge of these public properties.
Dogs damage trails and green ways with those knobby-tired mountain bikes they carelessly maneuver. Dogs feed flocks of geese, causing geese to defecate over the carefully manicured grass in parks. Dogs dispose of dirty diapers wherever possible, disregarding the effects on other park users. Dogs toss cigarette butts, sometimes still smoldering, anywhere they please. Dogs drop their used syringes wherever. Dogs deface any surface that holds paint with graffiti. Dogs leave their empty plastic containers anywhere. Dogs leave paper litter everywhere. Dogs assault humans, on and off trails and walkways at any opportunity. Dogs carelessly operate drones of all types in parks, regardless of the hazard to humans using the parks.
Peter L. Williamson
Vancouver, Washington
lonepine.jpg
The Lone Pine tribal fishing site on the Columbia River.
(Thomas Boyd/Staff)
By Rep. Earl Blumenauer and Sen. Jeff Merkley
The Columbia River is the economic heart of the Northwest, a beacon of prosperity and beauty. More than 4 trillion gallons of water are drawn from it and its tributaries annually for agriculture, industry and other uses. It provides electricity for millions of people and powers the region's economy. Nearly 17 million tons of cargo move along its waters every year -- from Lewiston, Idaho, to the Pacific Ocean. The river provides world-class outdoor recreation, bringing millions of visitors annually to its picturesque shores. Native fish and wildlife depend on its waters to sustain diverse habitats.
But the Columbia River of today came at a steep price for the first people living along its shores and fishing salmon from its waters. There is a much deeper story to be told regarding this river and the impact on the tribes, one that is unknown or far too often overlooked.
The Columbia used to look very different. It was narrower and faster-moving, with massive waterfalls and rapids. It was teeming with salmon so abundant that for thousands of years numerous tribes based their entire lives around it, living on its shores and eating and trading the salmon from its waters. The river formed a cultural artery, a network of places where families and nations congregated, sharing stories and history.
Western development, including the construction of the Columbia River dams beginning in the 1930s, severely and negatively impacted the vibrant cultures of tribes and bands now known as the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama Nation. In just a few decades, as villages and traditional fishing sites were flooded, a huge part of the culture and identity of the tribes was lost forever.
It has been devastating for these communities, which were never fully compensated for their losses. Today, many tribal members live at 31 small sites along their beloved Columbia in makeshift housing without proper electricity, sewers or water. They're living in severe poverty -- ironically next to the massive, expensive and profitable dams that forever changed the lives of their people.
These 31 sites were constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to provide the tribes treaty-protected river access to fish, compensating in small part for the access lost through the construction of the dams. The Corps designed the sites, now owned by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), to be used primarily for daily, in-season fishing access and temporary camping.
Out of both a need for housing that was never replaced and a desire to be closer to the river where they have always lived, many tribal members now use these areas as longer-term, even permanent residences.
We've visited some of these sites. The conditions we've seen firsthand are deeply distressing and unsafe, with entire communities living in makeshift housing, reliant on limited water sources and often without electricity.
No one should live like this.
Due to unacceptable bureaucratic inertia and congressional inaction, tribal members along the Columbia River have been living this way for far too long.
We cannot continue to ignore these shameful conditions. We're dedicated to providing both immediate and long-term relief to address the urgent need for adequate housing and infrastructure. We're working with the tribes, the Corps, the BIA and our colleagues in the Senate and the House to address this problem. The federal government should step up immediately and devote resources to improve the living conditions at these sites by constructing temporary dwellings and addressing current sanitation, safety and infrastructure needs. Longer-term, permanent housing must be built to replace what was flooded, providing compensation the tribes have too long been denied.
We commend reporter Molly Harbarger and The Oregonian/OregonLive for shining a much needed light on this miscarriage of justice. It is past time that we all take ownership of a situation that has festered for too long, symbolizing the failure to meet our treaty obligations.
We have met with tribal leaders and have been profoundly affected, humbled and moved to action. Another year cannot pass without action to improve living conditions and provide more housing for the people whose culture and heritage are at one with the majestic Columbia River.
*
Democrat Earl Blumenauer represents Oregon's 3rd congressional district in the House of Representatives. Democrat Jeff Merkley represents Oregon in the Senate.
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U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is flanked by California Gov. Jerry Brown, left, and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown as all sign the agreement to tear down four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River, at a ceremony in Klamath, Calif., last Wednesday.
(Lacey Jarrell/Klamath Falls Herald & News)
The agreement by Oregon, California and the utility PacifiCorp to remove four dams on the Klamath River is good news in that it shows a clear commitment to address longstanding water shortages suffered by farmers and ranchers in the arid Klamath Basin. But the immediate effect of removing the dams will be to help migrating salmon, not farmers, and the real water brokering ahead must involve constituents in the two-state basin and the U.S. Congress. It could, after years of trying by many, be a heavy lift.
Dam removal had been a stumbling block for Congress. It was part of a much broader set of agreements to avert crises in an agricultural region whose thirst for irrigation exceeds capacity and where some of the available water is sullied. Now, PacifiCorp, which owns the dams -- three are in California, one in Oregon -- will transfer title and license for the hydroelectric structures to a newly created nonprofit that will seek clearance for demolition through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, bypassing Congress altogether. Significant congressional doubters of the original multifaceted plan, Oregon Rep. Greg Walden among them, had feared that congressionally approved dam removal could set a dangerous precedent.
Removal of the dams, to be completed by 2020, is significant. While the dams account for only an estimated 2 percent of PacifiCorp's capacity, they represent the taming of a once-wild river for settlement of the West and are valued, particularly by northern California conservatives, as assets to be protected. Their removal, however, will open up about 400 miles of habitat for Klamath River salmon, historically a mainstay of the Pacific salmon fishery, and honor longstanding commitments to upriver tribes.
But the newly surging river, which should see bolstered salmon populations, could also require of Klamath farmers expensive screens to keep salmon out of irrigation ditches. Enter Congress, which could, under multiple scenarios yet to take shape, be asked by both states for potentially more than $100 million to underwrite several projects across the basin, including compensation to ranchers who would be asked to trim their operations to repair tributary streams and improve the basin's water quality.
Addressing the water shortage represents a delicate, emotionally charged give-and-take that involves farmers, ranchers, local and state elected leaders, members of Congress. It requires of all a clear-eyed recognition that the basin is oversubscribed, in part by the historical promotion of it by the federal government and in part by the historically errant belief that natural resources are infinite in their capacities.
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Richard Whitman, Gov. Kate Brown's policy adviser on the environment and a longtime coordinator of Klamath Basin constituents, told the editorial board of The Oregonian/OregonLive: "We still need a water deal. Removing the dams doesn't address water certainty to irrigators -- or the creation of reduced irrigation demand." But Whitman, an optimist, said he was most gratified last week by the willingness of several ranchers and farmers to step up and support the announcement of dam removal -- as if it were the beginning of something big, even though they'll not see more water from it.
With the right follow-up, it could become something big. Whitman said he expected that Brown, in partnership with U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, would in the coming months likely issue a call to restart Klamath talks with everyone at the table. That includes Walden and other members of Oregon's congressional delegation.
Must fatigue and crushed hopes among farmers, ranchers and tribes be overcome? Yes. Will opponents of water-brokering agreements as previously constructed again deride efforts at replumbing the basin as the work of environmental extremists and a few government elites? Surely. But: Will much of the Klamath Basin in the next inevitable drought go dry and cause farming and ranching families to lose livelihoods and wildlife to suffer? Absolutely.
Onward with the hard work of establishing a framework for reliable use and enjoyment of the Klamath Basin. Previous complex and finely tuned efforts at addressing water shortages will be honored when a plan serving multiple interests is presented to Congress -- and dams are not even in the discussion.
Study a map of presidential primary results and youll see Donald Trump dominating in the northeast, picking up pledged delegates as competitors stagger and fall. Youll see him defeating more established candidates in Arizona and Nevada and stunning pundits with complete dominance in the southern states.
But where you wont see Trump winning big, or winning much at all, is in Wyoming, Utah and Idaho, three of the nation's reddest states, where the real estate mogul and famed reality star has struggled to connect with voters.
Trump is still the front-runner for the GOP nomination for president, but hes failed in the Northern Rockies to gain the same support hes enjoyed in other states. Hes lost to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in Idaho and Utah and has claimed only one delegate so far in Wyoming the same number as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who has since dropped out of the race. Cruz, in comparison, earned nine.
Several factors contribute to Trump's lack of success in the Northern Rockies, political observers say. His top opponent, Cruz, has more often discussed issues that resonate with voters here land issues, energy and gun rights. Cruz has also made deeper inroads in the region he's already visited Wyoming once and will return Saturday. Trump has yet to visit. Trump's brash style may also be hurting him in Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain West, especially with Mormon voters who make up a sizable voting bloc.
Ground game
Cruz received nine of the 12 delegates at the GOP county conventions in March and is expected to do well when the state's final 14 delegates are chosen Saturday at the Wyoming GOP Convention in Casper.
The Cruz campaign has been on the ground in Wyoming since October. But the Texas senator's success in the Cowboy State is the result of more than his ground game, explained Ed Buchanan, former Wyoming House speaker and chairman of Cruzs Wyoming efforts.
Organization has some part to play, but I think more than that, the positions that Trump has held over his entire career, if you will, just dont resonate with Wyoming voters, Buchanan said. I dont think he shares the values and lifestyle of Western people. I dont think hes really in touch with what drives the economy out West with agriculture, with natural resources, with energy production.
Cruz, on the other hand, is from Texas, a state that has much in common with Wyoming, especially concerning agriculture and energy, Buchanan said. Cruz has been steadfast on the Second Amendment, which is important to Wyoming. He argues for states rights and is seen as an independent. In 2013, he helped force a 16-day government shutdown by leading a 21-hour filibuster to oppose Obamacare.
The senator first spoke in the Cowboy State, frequently treated as a flyover state for presidential elections, on Aug. 20 for a Wyoming GOP fundraiser. When he returns for the state GOP convention, he will be the only major GOP candidate to make the trip.
The Trump campaign is sending Sarah Palin in his stead. And Idaho Gov. Butch Otter will speak to Republicans on behalf of Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Ted Cruz will have been here twice now, Buchanan said. And, you know, people appreciate that. Normally, they take us for granted.
Libertarian streak
Trump's most intense support comes from white voters with less education and lower incomes. In theory, that might help Trump with blue-collar voters especially in parts of the state hammered by the energy downturn. But a state like Wyoming possesses more of a libertarian streak, rather than Trump-style nationalism that can give some folks pause, said Matt Dallek, a professor of political management in the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University.
"It is possible that Trump has continued to damage himself," Dallek said. "There's a sense that, look, we want a Republican, but it's not necessarily Trump."
In the Western and more conservative parts of the country, Dallek said Trump may not be playing as well to voters because of questions about his personal morality and whether or not he's truly committed to limited government.
Also playing into Trumps lack of popularity in Wyoming are Mormon voters. Nine percent of Wyomingites are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to a recent Pew Research Center study on Religion and Public Life. Mormon voters have rejected Trump in Idaho and Utah because they are uncomfortable with his Islamophobia, which stirs memories of persecution of the LDS in American history. Many have served church missions in Mexico and do not like his comments about immigrants, analysts have said. Mitt Romney, who is a popular Mormon Republican, has publicly spoken against Trump.
Teton vote
During last month's Republican county conventions, Trump won in only one place Teton County. And even that might be more of a fluke than a sign of deep-seated support, according to one prominent Republican who was in attendance.
Keith Gingery, a Republican from Jackson and a former lawmaker, said many people at the Teton County Convention were pushing for an undeclared delegate.
We thought it that would give us much more of an advantage, because people would woo them, he said.
But the undeclared candidates couldnt get a majority of the vote. After several rounds of voting, Jon Baker, a delegate supporting Trump, won.
Its a funny deal, Gingery said. Because youre voting for the person standing up there and a lot of times youre voting for that person. And Dr. Baker is a dermatologist in town. It had a lot to do with Jon wanting to go to the convention. I dont know how much it had to do with Trump than Jon wanting to go to convention.
The Star-Tribune left a message with Baker at his office, which was not returned.
Trump support
Although Cruz has so far come out on top in Wyoming, Trump has started a conversation that has energized voters, said Campbell County Republican Party Chairman Chris Smith.
Some of Cruz's support comes from his ability to appeal to the faith-based community, Smith said, while Trump's aggressive views on immigration, nationalism and employment has jumped out to Wyoming voters in an election year where unemployment in the state is rising and the energy industry is in a slump.
"In Wyoming, we're very patriotic people," Smith said. "Red, white and blue. I think people see it. There's stuff that isn't made in America anymore. It's hard to find those products, everything is being made overseas, and we're losing that battle there with trade."
Some Trump supporters say their voice hasn't been heard in the process.
Clarence Vranish is one. The Trump supporter, and former state Legislator, said there was no vote, no discussion on who theyd support in Uinta County. His county went to Cruz, like much of the state.
"The election for president should be the selection of the people by the people," he said. "It shouldn't be determined only because an individual has money that he can go to the convention, that he could be the one that actually picks it. That's not right.
Delegate math
Marco Rubio. Jeb Bush. Chris Christie. Ben Carson. Rand Paul.
The list of politicians Trump has felled to get to this point is already lengthy and could grow to include Kasich and Cruz before primary season is over. But even with a lead, and a seemingly endless cycle of news following his every move, Trump could still fall short of the necessary amount of delegates 1,237 to secure the nomination. If that happens, his poor showing in the Northern Rockies will have played a role.
But for many Wyoming Republicans, it ultimately doesn't matter who is in the White House as long as the next president is a conservative.
Campbell County is still reeling from almost 500 people losing their jobs in the coal industry recently, while oil and natural gas have continued to slip for the cities built on the bedrock of the nations energy industry. Coal miners and their friends largely blamed President Barack Obama and his administration for the layoffs.
"Hopefully we get a Republican in office," said Chad Friedt, a Realtor with Team Properties Group in Gillette. "I don't care who it is, as long as they are not against the natural resources."
Gurney in tow and IV bag dangling, emergency medical technicians rushed down the hallway, not at a hospital, but at Delta College.
Wanda Zenzen, a nursing faculty member, cried out in pain as she played the role of a trauma patient in a large-scale interdisciplinary simulation, but as she was brought into the emergency room, the students responded with the focus and urgency of a real scenario.
More than 50 participants, including students from six Delta College disciplines and three EMTs studying to receive their paramedic license from Mobile Medical Response of Saginaw, were involved in the simulation at Delta College in Frankenlust Township on Tuesday.
Simulations are a way in which health care providers can learn not only skills but perfect the skill in practice without danger to the patient, said Lori Kloc, simulation educator and learning specialist at Delta College. The purpose of this simulation is to not only practice and perfect skills of all of the disciplines involved, but also to work together as a team and coordinate their efforts on behalf of these patients throughout the day as if they were actually working in a hospital.
The trauma simulation began with a mock car crash involving an uninjured driver and trauma to a pregnant woman in her third trimester. MMR paramedic students responded to the scene, assessed the two individuals involved in the crash, extricated the patient, Wanda Zenzen, from the vehicle and transported her to the ER at the colleges Health Professions Building.
Were excited to have MMR working with the six disciplines here at Delta College because weve never really gotten the chance to practice their delivery of a patient to a healthcare provider, Kloc said.
Once there, Zenzens role was replaced by a medical manikin. Simulation specialist Lori Kloc voiced patient comments and questions over a microphone from the control room, where she could watch the students through a two-way mirror. Nursing students continued to assess the patient and administer an IV, respiratory therapists placed an endotracheal tube to help the patient breathe, radiology students took X-rays and sonographers performed an ultrasound. Meanwhile, surgical technologists prepared for an emergency Caesarean section.
For ultrasound, were kind of behind the scenes most of the time, so its pretty interesting to see what happens before we go to our patients, said sonography student Jessica Reif.
Reif explained that ultrasounds are not always obstetrical, but in this simulation their goal was to rule out placental abruption.
If that patient had trauma to her belly and had a placental abruption, that could potentially kill the baby and could lead to the death of her, she said. (Ultrasound) is a really important role. Seeing that play out makes me realize how important it really is.
In the simulation operating room, surgical technologists assisted Health and Wellness Division Chairman Don Traverse as he performed the Caesarean section. Upon delivery, the infant had breathing problems, so respiratory therapists treated the newborn manikin until it cried. Radiography students performed a chest X-ray and nursing students then assessed and cared for the infant. A second team of surgical technologists assisted for a second surgery to care for an open fracture.
While students were not performing their assigned tasks, they were able to watch the procedures on monitors in classrooms, as each simulation lab had video cameras.
Its a great opportunity (to participate) because we are one portion of an integral part of care and its an opportunity for each of us to see and learn a little more about each other, said Ken White, education manager at MMR.
White explained that allowing students to see one patients entire care helps illustrate how different disciplines work together and affect each other.
It really helps to make a much better continuum of care for the patient, he said.
In addition to emergency responses, students were able to practice working with the patient the day after the crash. In the afternoon, nursing, sonography, radiography and respiratory students continued care and the physical therapy assistant students had the opportunity to work with the patient on mobility and range of motion exercises.
A collaboration between nursing and surgical technologist students was the beginning of interdisciplinary simulations.
As soon as the rest of the health disciplines here at Delta College heard about what was happening, they immediately rushed me with emails saying, We want in on the next one! Kloc said.
The health faculty put together a six-hour simulation similar to this years, which was met with very positive feedback and was highlighted in state and national conferences.
I anticipate this will be even more ground breaking since were including MMR, Kloc said. Were anticipating law enforcement being involved next year.
White said he is excited to be a part of the simulation.
One of the things we know about the education process is that realistic simulation brings us to a point of suspending disbelief, so you actually can immerse yourself in the situation, he said.
Nursing student Sarah Mead, who was in the group of trauma nurses, said the simulation felt like her experience working as a nurses assistant in the ER.
You get in there and your adrenaline is running and you are in the moment. It was very exciting and worthwhile, she said of the experience. Everyone has a different role, and if they do their role well, it works out. Even though its chaos, its controlled chaos. Everyone knows where theyre supposed to be. In these situations, I think its good to get an idea from what really is going to happen.
Mead said the simulations help prepare her for what she may encounter as a nurse.
Theres been a couple times when a simulation has come into real life and I was able to remember what we did. Its been a huge benefit, she said. It gives you a foundation to work on.
DETROIT (AP) A lawsuit by medical marijuana dispensaries challenging Detroit's new ordinances regulating the locations of shops has been dismissed.
City Corporation Counsel Melvin Hollowell says in a press release that officials are "confident that the city's medical marijuana regulations are lawful, fair and reasonable."
LANSING, Mich. (AP) Michigan's role in picking the next GOP nominee at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this summer is set with more national delegates pledged to vote for businessman Donald Trump because he won the primary in the state last month.
Hundreds of Republicans gathered Friday and Saturday in Lansing to pick Michigan's national delegates to represent the state's Republicans at the convention.
Twenty-five of Michigan's 59 delegates pledged to vote for Trump, the GOP presidential front-runner, while 17 will vote for Ohio Gov. John Kasich and 17 for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for the first round of voting. But if no candidate receives enough initial support at the national convention, the party will stage a second round of voting in which Michigan's delegates would no longer be bound to vote as they did at first.
Some political experts say that could be dangerous for Republicans if Democrats settle on their nominee before the GOP does and have more time to campaign and raise money.
"Coming out of the convention you've got to raise a tremendous amount of money to campaign and it's pretty tough to raise money if you're not the confirmed candidate," said John Truscott, a former state delegate who now has the public relations firm Truscott Rossman.
Republican political strategist Stu Sandler said he thinks a contested convention could be more likely after Trump's recent loss in Wisconsin, too.
Meanwhile, Gov. Rick Snyder repeated his call for a Republican presidential nominee that has worked as a state governor, and only Kasich fits that description. That's despite Trump's earlier big Michigan win, though Snyder said he won't be a national delegate this year.
Snyder said "having a governor's background is one of the best backgrounds you could have to be a candidate." He added that he thinks the state GOP convention shows that despite differences in candidate support, the party wants "to work together" to get a Republican elected to the White House.
Michigan Speaker of the House Kevin Cotter said he's committed to Cruz. Cotter is as an alternate delegate who would vote in Cleveland if the national delegate he's meant to replace if needed couldn't attend.
Ronna Romney McDaniel, chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, said she's committed to Trump for the first round. She said she wouldn't speculate "on hypotheticals" about whether she'd change her vote if Trump didn't get enough delegate support this summer. She also wouldn't say who her second pick might be if it came down to it.
"I remain committed to voters of Michigan," McDaniel said.
Other supporters of Trump at the convention repeated familiar reasons for liking him: They say they think he's honest, that he "can't be bought" because he's already rich.
One Republican at the convention who runs a popular hot dog stand by the Michigan Capitol building on weekdays said he likes Trump because "he's untraditional."
"He sets out to let people know that, 'Look, I'm not fully a politician, but I know what's going on,'" Clinton Tarver said.
Tarver, who is black, said he wasn't concerned when Trump at first declined to disavow former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke because Trump just didn't "want to get involved." Tarver said he doesn't think Trump is racist.
He said he'd consider voting for Cruz if Trump didn't win the nomination.
Thomas Gennara
When Michigan residents think of Consumers Energy, we always hope that certain words come to mind first. Safe. Affordable. Reliable. For us, its critical that we deliver energy whether its natural gas or electricity when people need it, at a fair price and using every necessary precaution.
Just as important is another word clean. Michigan is a state with wonderful natural resources, and the people who we serve expect us to leave things better than we found them. Were proud that Michigans air is the cleanest it has been in over a generation, and we want to help preserve our Great Lakes and rivers.
James Madison declared way back in 1792 that in America Government is instituted to protect property of every sort ...(and)...to secure to every man whatever is his own. That was then.
Today, according to a new Institute for Justice (IJ) report titled Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture, 2nd Edition, Civil forfeiture threatens the constitutional rights of all Americans. Using civil forfeiture, the government can take your home, business, cash, car and other property on the mere suspicion that it is somehow connected to criminal activity and without ever convicting, or even charging, you with a crime.
The report goes on to say, Property owners in Michigan have much to fear from the states civil forfeiture laws.
Here is how laws in Michigan are stacked against property owners.
Standards of Proof. To forfeit property suspected of involvement in a crime, Michigan law enforcement officials need only show that the property was used in a crime based on a preponderance of evidence meaning the governments case need only be slightly better than the property owners. This low level of proof favors the government, not the property owner.
Innocent Owner Burden. What if someone other than yourself, a friend perhaps, allegedly uses your property to commit a crime and the police have seized your property. Because property owners are presumed to be somehow connected to a crime involving their property, in all drug-related cases in Michigan it is your legal responsibility not the governments to prove that you had nothing to do with the crime and that your property should be returned to you.
Police Profit Incentives. Converting private assets to public use is a big business in Michigan. Teaming up with forfeiture programs run by the federal Departments of Justice and Treasury in effect loopholes that allow state law enforcement agencies to sidestep strict state laws Michigan law enforcement agencies raked in more than $146 million from the sale of forfeited property between 2000 and 2013.
Under Michigans statutes, law enforcement agencies are allowed to keep, for their own use, up to 100 percent of the proceeds from the sale of forfeited property. Under state forfeiture laws, between 2001 and 2013, state law enforcement agencies collected an additional $244 million.
This is a powerful incentive for agencies to aggressively seize private property in anticipation of padding their bottom line.
Looking to the future, the IJ report lists a number of steps needed to end property abuse in Michigan and in other states.
1. Close Federal Loopholes. In many states, police agencies rely on these federal loopholes to both sidestep stiffer state forfeiture laws such as the requirement that forfeiture proceeds must go to the states educational budget and to increase their cut of the seized properties. One national survey found that 40 percent of state and local police agencies consider civil forfeiture proceeds a necessary part of their budgets.
Good news: Due to federal budget cuts, these federal loopholes have been, perhaps only temporarily, closed. To protect Michigan property owners, the IJ recommends permanently shutting down this law enforcement gravy train.
Not so good news: In response to the shutdown of the federal programs, the International Association of Chiefs of Police issued a statement saying the decision was detrimental to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve.
2. Boost Standards of Proof. Raising the level of proof needed before private property can be forfeited is also needed. Under civil forfeiture laws, the property itself, however remotely linked with a criminal act, has committed a crime and can be seized. In most cases, to get seized property back the owner must prove the property was innocent.
3. End Conflicts of Interest. As long as a law enforcement departments prestige and the reputation of its officers is judged by how many assets are seized each year, police chiefs will have a strong incentive to push their officers to be more aggressive during raids, make unnecessary raids and cut legal corners.
Until the law enforcement agencies stop financially gaining from their seizures, Michigan citizens will continue to wonder why their police forces conduct drug raids. Are they to rid the town of drugs or to fatten police department budgets?
Ronald Fraser, Ph.D., writes on public policy issues for the DKT Library Project, a Washington-based civil liberties organization. Write to him at fraserr@erols.com.
Production for "Longmire" Season 5 has already begun in New Mexico and the cast and crew have been sharing several photos on their respective social media accounts. Spoilers reveal that Donna's son will be appearing in the upcoming episodes, which may cause problems between Donna and Walt.
This article contains spoilers. Read on to learn more about this story.
"Longmire" Season 5 spoilers reveal that the Netflix series has recently tapped Sterling Beaumon, who is best known for his roles in "Clue" and "Lost," to play the role of Andrew Price, reports International Business Times. His character is described as a "smart a-prep school kid."
"Longmire" Season 5 spoilers also hint that Walt (Robert Taylor) and Vic (Katee Sackhoff) will meet Andrew for the first time when they catch him breaking into Donna's (Ally Walker) house. The latter, however, will claim to be Donna's son.
Fans began speculating that Donna's son (if she really had one) may pose some serious problems between Walt and Donna's relationship. This may pave the way for the most-awaited romance between Walt and Vic in "Longmire," as this was the storyline indicated in Craig Johnson's books.
Fans have been debating on Walt and Vic's romantic relationship for a while now, as some are rooting for them. Others, however, find that Vic is a bit too young for Walt.
Carter Matt, however, notes on the possibility that Walt may find a new love interest in "Longmire" Season 5. According to the publication, it may be interesting to see Walt fall for someone new and see how he will be handling this new relationship.
The outlet also points out that Walt should be placed in "some more fish-out-of-water situations" in "Longmire" Season 5, which can ultimately test his personality and professional skills.
"Longmire" Season 5 is expected to premiere this September on Netflix.
It wasnt until the next morning, sitting in a glider and watching his 3-year-old daughter play with her toys on the living room floor, that Brad Jerome realized how close he had come to dying.
The night before, July 8, 2011, Jerome and Sgt. Steven Kenner had been called to a mobile home to check on a man, Steven Bannister, who was threatening his girlfriend with a knife.
Kenner found Bannister in a van across the street from the home. Jerome heard Kenner yell, Police officer, show your hands. He ran to the drivers side; Kenner stood on the passengers side.
Bannister stared each of them in the eye through the windows of the van, Jerome recalls, and took aim at Kenner. The flash of the muzzle illuminated the interior of the van, and he saw Bannister turn in his direction.
I remember telling myself subconsciously, you know what you have to do. Youve gotta finish this. You know what youve gotta do, he said.
Jerome fired four rounds into the van and ducked for cover in front of the engine, not knowing whether he had hit Bannister. He could only see what was directly in front of him, he said.
Listen for the doors, he told himself. Listen for the doors.
Soon, he heard shuffling from the east, he said. It sounded like crunching leather, jingling keys, dangling chains. He knew more officers were on the way.
What happened? an officer yelled.
Shots fired, Jerome responded.
It was like a light bulb went back on inside, he said. And when my vision opened back up, I saw a glowing flashlight on the ground.
Sgt. Kenner was lying by the van. Bannisters bullet had hit him in the chest.
Other officers put Bannister, who was alive but badly wounded, in handcuffs. Jerome saw a bullet had struck above the mans eye.
I remember thinking to myself ... I just killed a guy, he said.
Bannister survived his injuries that night. Kenner did not.
The next day, Jerome was home on administrative leave, crying uncontrollably.
Those little things we take for granted, like watching our kids play with our toys, he said. It tore me up knowing that it could have been the other way around.
Double damage
Four Bismarck police officers have fired their guns in the line of duty this year. In the course of three incidents in three months, two men were injured and one was killed.
On March 6, a Bismarck officer fatally shot James Anthony Scott, a 42-year-old Mandan man, who was allegedly threatening to kill someone with a shotgun in east Bismarck. It was the first fatal shooting by a Bismarck police officer since 2003, Sgt. Mark Buschena said.
On Jan. 31, Travis Clark, 26, of Bismarck, was shot by two Bismarck police officers after he allegedly reached for what officers believed was a weapon in his car.
On Jan. 23, Miguel Stubing, 18, of Mandan, was shot by Sgt. Jordan West after he allegedly drove a stolen vehicle at him.
While officer-involved shootings in North Dakota have not resulted in protests, such incidents have angered many in the nation during the past year and a half. Many are asking why officers shoot and how to reduce the number of people injured and killed by police.
A further question, less frequently asked, is what happens to officers who fire. The Tribune spoke with Bismarck police who have shot people in the line of duty as well as individuals who work with officers who have found that such incidents can rattle officers in the short-run and often haunt them for years.
Even though I dont have any physical injuries associated with that incident, the scars are there, Jerome said.
All three shootings remain under investigation and three of the officers have not been identified, so the Tribune did not contact them for interviews.
Inside the mind of an officer
During a life-threatening incident, officers tend to focus on the immediate danger of the situation, Florida-based police psychologist Laurence Miller said in an interview with the Tribune. The intense focus may cause officers to experience a distorted sense of time, muffled sounds and tunnel vision. They often have trouble remembering the details, he said, because the encounter wasnt fully processed.
Right after they shoot, officers often begin breathing quickly, trembling and sweating for the next several hours or few days, Miller said. Their systems are on high alert, and they may have trouble sleeping.
Many start to ruminate over the what ifs What if someone had moved? What if Id acted a second earlier or a second later?
For most officers, these reactions abate over the next few days, Miller said, especially if the shooting is uncontested. But some become so destabilized they have trouble going back to work.
Bringing officers back
Criminal procedures, along with internal reviews, determine whether officers are legally qualified to go back to work. The police department also must make sure they are emotionally and psychologically ready.
A specialized team is called in to evaluate and prepare officers to return after a shooting.
The first member of that team is chaplain Sam Saylor, who meets with officers shortly after the incident. He tells them he cares about what they are experiencing, and he reminds them that the next days will be hard. He encourages them to eat, sleep and drink water.
Many officers already know Saylor. He helps train recruits in how to reduce stress and accompanies officers on traumatic calls.
Within a few days of the shooting, Saylor convenes the officers involved. They share what they saw and what they felt. They tell each other what the worst part of the incident was for them and one good thing that came out of it.
Saylor said it helps officers realize, Im not crazy, and it gives officers a chance to tell each other, you have my back.
Another member is a psychologist at Sanford Health, who meets with the officer four to five days after the incident. Miller, the police psychologist in Florida, who has done this work for more than 20 years, said he first asks the officer to explain what happened, so that he can demonstrate that the experience is normal and provide reassurance that he or she will get better. He also decides whether the person can go back on the force: If he thinks an officer is going to overreact or underreact, its not time, he said.
The psychologist who works with Bismarck officers declined to be interviewed for this story.
Nolan Canright
Some officers recover quickly after a shooting. Nolan Canright fired his weapon in 2014, while responding to a report of a man, Colton Wooten, brandishing a gun.
Canright chased the suspect and found him crouched behind the corner of a bank, pointing his gun at Canright, who says he called out, Drop the gun, and fired four times, not striking Wooten. He heard the man run but had no idea whether he had hit him. He didnt even know how many shots he fired.
Looking back, Canrights biggest worry was not that he fired. He fears what would have happened had he hesitated.
He stayed home a few days before returning to the desk and then to patrol about a week later. He said he was eager to get back on the street.
But that first night, Canright said he faced a similar situation someone was sitting in a car and displaying a handgun behind Kirkwood Mall.
I must be jinxed, he thought to himself without worrying. Everything turned out OK, and he didnt have to fire.
Wootens family and attorney could not be reached for comment.
For Jerome, the pain continues
Other officers struggle. A few hours after the shooting that killed Kenner, Jerome met his wife at the police station.
My wife is a small-statured person, tiny little thing, and I just crumbled into her arms, and I just bawled, he said.
They met with the police chief together, because he knew this would affect her, too.
For months, he struggled to fall asleep. When he went back on patrol after about a month, he said, It was like the first day all over again.
Not only was everyone watching over him; they were observing him.
Jerome never thought about Bannister much, he said. The day he was sentenced, Jerome remembers resenting him though Bannister would spend his life in prison, he would get to live. Bannister is serving life without parole at the state penitentiary.
Bannisters family could not be reached for comment.
Nearly five years later, Jerome still thinks about the incident every day. It is not lost on him that his 3-year-old son wouldnt exist if he had died that night. He misses Kenner, who was one of his mentors, and asks if something could have been done differently.
Id be a liar if I didnt say I had survivors guilt, he said.
He sometimes confides in a chaplain and a counselor and avoids social media around the anniversary. People mean well, he said, but thin blue lines bring me right back into it.
Asked whether he thought about leaving his job, he said, absolutely, but he still patrols Bismarck.
I didnt want to leave my chosen profession on somebody elses terms, he said.
Jerome reaches out to officers who are involved in shootings.
If nothing else, I can offer them some support from someone who shared a similar experience, said Jerome, who also advises officers to seek counseling if they need it, telling them, its not a sign of weakness.
Reflecting on the officers involved in this years shootings, Jerome said, I know that theyre going to have to live with this, too. I dont know how theyre going to handle it. We all handle things differently, but the fact of the matter is that it will never go away.
We all handle things differently, but the fact of the matter is that it will never go away. Brad Jerome, Bismarck police officer
Parents and students sued some New York City schools for failing to address increasing levels of violence and in keeping the children safe. The federal complaint against the U.S. Department of Education was filed on Wednesday in Brooklyn, New York.
According to the lawsuit documents, the schools have a "staggering" level of violence directed mostly towards minority students, but unfortunately, those numbers are continually growing as well. It was also reported that white and Asian students, in contrast, experience less violence at school.
"The violence knows few boundaries, except that, on average, white and Asian students encounter far fewer incidents of school violence than black and Hispanic students," the lawsuit claimed. Among those commonly abused in the schools are younger students, the disabled and LGBT students.
Increasing Levels of Violence
The complaint said that between the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 school years, violent incidents inside city schools increased 23 percent. Forcible sex offenses climbed up to 90 percent, while there's a 48 percent rise in assaults resulting in serious physical injury.
Among the plaintiffs is Families for Excellent Schools, a powerful charter-school advocacy group, the Washington Post reported. Children who are plaintiffs in the complaint claimed that they experienced bullying or attacks from their fellow students and even from their teachers.
Students who report assaults usually suffered retaliation from their schools, the lawsuit noted. New York City has the largest public school system in the United States. Around 1,800 schools have 1.1 million students, Reuters wrote.
Mayor Fires Back
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio dismissed the lawsuit's claim of rising violence in city schools. He said that "major crime" in schools has lessened by 14 percent this year as of now, while other crimes are down by almost 7 percent, the Washington Post reported.
"I was a public school parent as recently as last June, and we never want to see a weapon in schools," de Blasio said, as quoted by the news outlet. "I view each incidence as obviously troubling. We absolutely have more work to do, but school safety is showing us consistently that they can and will continue to drive down crime in the schools, and keep all students and staff safe."
The lawsuit "seeks to mandate new anti-bullying and anti-violence regulations and to force the education department to enforce policies already on the books," Reuters reported. The complaint also alleged that violence in New York City's schools "violates children's constitutional rights and deprives them of their right to a safe education, which is guaranteed by state law," as per the Washington Post.
In March, four students have been caught carrying loaded guns inside city schools, NBC noted. The lawsuit also alleged that school officials under-report school violence. A 2015 audit by the state comptroller found that 10 public schools didn't report almost one-third of violent incidents.
Students' behavior depends on how good the policies of their school are. If the teachers want their students to be well-disciplined, all they have to do is fix their schools and start to motivate them.
Misbehavior In Students Expected To Grow
According to StarTribune, a good example is the High School for the Recording Arts in Saint Paul. The school is expected to face misbehavioral problems as it has a number of overaged, under-credited and homeless students.
However, the said school remains to be very organized and doing well for keeping their students, no matter what their issues are, in different activities and under "individual learning plan." There are a lot of reasons why students get distracted and having behavior problems.
Hence, the schools they are in should set and fix their policies to make their students improved. Students that are motivated by their schools have a lower chance of having behavioral issues.
Schools Must Change
The new standard is the schools should teach their students what they want to know. Fayobserver reported, according to a study, a school must be altered completely to be more efficient and obtain the real change.
As per the late John Chubb, a known expert about schools, only reforming schools that are overhauling itself fully can promise a "new day" for the institution and its students. Mike Feinberg, the co-founder of KIPP charter network, on the other hand, said, "The best way we can look a child in the eye and say with confidence what kind of school and environment we will provide is by starting that school and environment from scratch."
Another professor, Jack Frymier, who's knowledgeable of the school situations because of his career in curriculum and instruction, said: "If young people want to learn, they will; if they don't, you probably can't make 'em." He, too, added schools should motivate their students properly to improve their learning and be well-behaved.
Jack Frymier also explained that motivation should be given individually. Teachers should understand their students' differences to give the right instruction to every student.
Prince Harry and Kate Middleton's little sister, Pippa, have reportedly been enjoying secret trysts for some time now. While this news on Prince Harry should easily draw public attention away from Kate Middleton and Prince William, the royal family celebrity is actually outshining the rest with his charity work in Nepal.
Gossip Cop quotes OK! magazine's report that Prince Harry had been seen frequenting the Cross Keys pub in London, close to the home of Pippa Middleton. The report alleges that Prince Harry and Pippa Middleton meet up at the said bar and hang out.
"Pippa Middleton and Prince Harry have long been enraptured in a 'secret romance' behind closed doors, but their public rendezvous spot has been uncovered - and it's conveniently located right near the brunette beauty's home," a source allegedly told OK! magazine.
Gossip Cop suggests that reports on Prince Harry and Pippa Middleton dating in secret are bogus. The media outlet points out that Prince Harry may have spent time in the bar, but not because of Pippa Middleton. The bar owner, Mark Dyer, reportedly had been good friends with Princess Diana. If Prince Harry make his trips to the Cross Keys pub, Pippa Middleton does not figure in any of them.
People reports that maintaining long-standing friendships is not the only preoccupation on which Prince Harry spends time. Along with the Team Rubicon charity, Prince Harry had been lending hands and brawn to rebuild a school in the mountains of Nepal. Prince Harry, whose primary charity Sentebale is focused on helping children in Lesotho in Africa, reportedly also took the time to chat with the local kids in Nepal.
Team Rubicon brings together military veterans to assist in areas that suffered damages from natural disasters. Prince Harry joined Team Rubicon, not just in school rebuilding but also in repairing a hydro-electric turbine, which is the energy source for around 300 homes. Prince Harry and Team Rubicon later on helped with the installation of a solar farm, which is designed to be the source of sustainable electricity to the surrounding area.
Although Kate Middleton and Prince William are not short of engagements in the way of environmental and charitable causes, Prince Harry has the main spotlight for now. Both Prince Harry and Prince William took after Princess Diana and Prince Charles in their voluntary interest and involvement in worthy causes.
A pre-school teacher in Pikeside Learning Center at Martinsburg, West Virginia is using iPad Minis to revolutionize the way she teaches children with special needs. This is after her class received an iPad grant from a non-profit organization.
Your4State.com reports that pre-school teacher Kelly Miller received an iPad grant worth $1,400 from the West Virginia Community Foundation. Miller, who teaches young children with special needs, used the fund to purchase six units of iPad Mini for learning purposes.
Miller said that she is utilizing the iPad Minis to let her students relax in the classroom. She explained that using the iPad Minis will allow children with special needs to learn and have fun at the same time. The pre-school teacher also added that it will exercise the students' motor skills and teach them the value of sharing.
Aside from purchasing six iPad Minis, Miller also used a portion of the iPad grant to buy an $80-iTunes gift card, which will be used for the class activities of children with special needs. All learning devices contained alphabet games, Dr. Seuss stories, and other games and apps that can aid student learning.
Several experts have suggested in the past to use devices like iPad Minis to empower children with special needs. Luis Perez, author of Mobile Learning for All: Supporting Accessibility with the iPad, along with speech language pathologist Betsy Furler and Bridging Apps co-founder Cristen Carson Reat, wrote on Education World that an iPad is very helpful to special needs students because of its apps and accessibility features.
Perez, Furler and Reat said children with special needs, especially those who are non-verbal, could use an iPad to express their needs in a classroom. They also added that the device could aid in developing the writing and reading skills of a special needs child.
According to WonderBaby.org, there are various nonprofit organizations and local charities that offer iPad grant for children with special needs. These include iTaalk, HollyRod Foundation, Autism Care and Treatment, Special Kids Therapy and Small Steps in Speech.
Jeremy Saulniers movies wont be typically identified as horror, but theres few contemporary American directors more attuned to the dread that comes with being placed into a life-threatening situation. Saulnier makes movies about characters forced into morally compromising situations, focusing less on their ethical dilemmas than the moment-to-moment terror of the situation itself, going for audience immersion over philosophical discourse.
Drawing from the masters of the 80s, Saulniers visual sensibility is both unflinchinggory money shots of julienne-sliced limbs are commonand gleefully suppressed, avoiding any opportunity to soothe a jumpy audience. Alongside recent American revisionists like Adam Wingard and Ti West, Saulnier is reinvigorating the pulp canon of the 80s with contemporary moral codes and permeable atmosphere. Rest assured, Green Room, Saulniers new release, knows it needs to appease gorehounds, but blood never flows without purpose. And all bets are off on whos making it home.
Corralling together marquee names like Patrick Stewart and recognizable faces like Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots and Alia Shawkat, Green Room immediately feels more expansive than 2013s Blue Ruin, Saulniers previous film. Not only because of the juiced-up star powerGreen Room is a loving reinvention of the siege story, part of a classic lineage with the likes of Rio Bravo and Seven Samurai, or more thematic bedfellows like Straw Dogs and Assault On Precinct 13. The entirety of Green Room centers on two opposing groups attempting to control a single space.
With its claustrophobic corridors and shuttered corners, its difficult to imagine a more appropriate location to find Saulnier than in the Hard Rock Hotel. Walking into the room, Saulniers worn down, but noticeably excited to talk about his latest moviesoft-spoken, but delightfully foul-mouthed and playful. He did, after all, just make the movie that was exactly the type of movie he wanted to see when he was 18.
(This interview was conducted in-tandem with another interviewer. Their portion of the interview has been re-printed with their permission.)
Paste Magazine: In recent interviews, youve talked quite a bit about how you grew up in the 90s, and had scary experiences with Nazis while going to hardcore shows. In Green Room, Nazis are your villains, and they have a very loaded cinematic history. What were you most conscious about in not making those characters too straightforward, or too cartoonish?
Jeremy Saulnier: I knew Nazi punks would be low-hanging fruit for movie bad guys. But the thing is within the Hardcore scene, I didnt pick them because they were specifically Nazis. I picked them because they wear uniforms. They tend towards militancy. They tend towards having weapons. If you go to a punk show, theyre the guys who actually might do this because of their organizationtheir affiliation with the other nefarious activities, and their gang culture. The Hare Krishna squad arent going to be the ones doing this. Neither are the vegansyou never know though (laughs). And neither are the straight-edge kids. The Nazi skinheads wear boots and braces. They want to be identified, they wear insignias, and have much more structure to them. I certainly alluded to ideology as far as the physical spacetheres some artifacts as far as the spacebut we never really get into why theyre Nazis, or into promoting the scene. It just wasnt really that relevant. It was instead about: How can we humanize them?, not How can we vilify them?
Paste : And you also dont want people to watch this movie and be like, Man, I hope they fuck those guys up.
Saulnier: Right, it has to be much more troubling than that.
Paste: Theres such an intricate sense of movement to the film. Youre juggling more than half a dozen protagonists, and theyre all going into different parts of the club, and spreading out. How did you plan out the way that all the characters movements would coordinate together?
Saulnier: A few weeks into the location scouting process, we realized we had to build the entire interior location to spec because I had written [the script] with every hallway, exit, and doorway in mind. In a lot of my films, we get down into the minutiae, the detail. Its about where people are standing, what people are saying to each other, and how close they have to be to the door, for instance. All of a sudden, it became inevitable. There were no options anymore. I did a Google sketch-up of the rough overhead plan of the entire venue. The funny thing was when writing it, I had a very clear vision of what this film was, yet when I was translating that to an overhead diagram, I actually defied the space-time-continuum. I defied logic spatial reality, andgravity (laughs). And a few times, I was like, Oh wait, thats physically impossible, so my production designer, Ryan Smith, he re-translated my diagram into something we could actually build. That was a huge part of it. When the Aint Rights move through the venue for the first time, we are getting a nice, little backstage tour. I tried to keep that movement fluid and continuous, so we could tie the space together pretty quick. It does come across, I hope relatively seamlessly. It was a huge challenge, but it was pretty visualized going in. The challenge was to actually indulge in world-building.
Paste:With this movie, nearly every person in the cast is white.
Saulnier: We snuck in an Arab and a Jew (laughs). But yes, everyone in the band is white.
Paste: Right, in the band, but it does seem like the entire movie has this white trash quality. Its not just about the neo-Nazis and white power. The entire movie is about the corrosion of white power.
Saulnier: And when theyre playing shows outside, theres a more diverse cast. Thats written into the script. When theyre playing the local Mexican restaurant, the local hardcore kids show up, and theres a bit of diversity. I will say though, in the coastal town in Portland, it was hard to get non-whites to show up. Its part of that world. Of course, within this sort of right wing or ultra-left white power establishment, it had to be primarily white people. But in the band, there is someone of Arab descent, but the key was they had to pass for white. If youre playing a show at a Nazi-friendly establishment, the real conflict has to evolve from that. The Aint Rights are aware of that, and thats why their first song is The Dead Kennedys Nazi Punks Fuck Off. They dont feel part of that world. The fact that theyre welcome is creepy.
Paste: In Blue Ruin and now in Green Room, you have characters who intentionally live off the grid. They exist almost adjacent to society. In Blue Ruin, Dwight (Macon Blair) is right by a bustling town, but hes staying in an abandoned car. And similarly, the band members of Aint Rights dont believe in phones or social media? Is that remoteness a dynamic you normally gravitate to, or is that something you think about in terms of your storytelling?
Saulnier: Well, I dont think about it, but I think youre right. I think I dont like a lot of urban environments. Ive been living in New York for 22 years. And like a lot of filmmakers, I like my hometown. Thats where my cinematic upbringing took place. I like trees and rivers and dirt, and shit like that. I tend to just want to be there. And I dont know why. Im sure that will evolve, but I think its just visually and environmentally more rich for me to be away from the pavement as much as possible.
Paste: Similarly, theres kind of a breaking point in both these moves where these characters want to accept killing, or accept death itself. What interests you about that moment?
Saulnier: Both those films have people who arent surrounded by death until these scenarios unfold. Its more about them acclimating to that cinematic environment which Ive thrust them into. They have to acclimate, and when they have to fight, thats when we see the transition take place. Dwight in Blue Ruin has had this hurt for over a decade, and hes, of course, experienced loss, but hes very inept when it comes to avenging that loss. And in Green Room, theres just no time for that indulgent behavior of going off the grid, and being your own person, and wallowing. They didnt ask for this, and as they start dying, those who survive have to step up. And the only way to do that is to transition into killers, and realize that theyre no real match for the semi-professional soldiers outside the green room. They kind of have to go gonzo to fight.
Paste: Where did that paintball story in the movie come from?
Saulnier: Real life. My buddy, Rick Spears, took out some marines when we were getting trounced. Thats the thing: If you go full stupid, you can actually win. Its awesome. Its not just movie shit. If youre up against a bunch of motherfucking badasses, you can do it. Ive seen it done before (laughs).
Paste: One thing many people talk about with your movies is how the violence isnt very traditionally heroic. You dont often offer conventional catharsis. In your scripting and filmmaking process, do you have a conscious philosophy about building this untraditional thread of heroism?
Saulnier: I dont know if I really have one as far as the violence. I just put them in the stew and cook them. I write very intuitively. Im certainly very aware that this is entertainment, and I know where it has to go eventually, but I like to be surprised. The rule I haveand I break my own rulesis reverence for everybody, for loss of life, and for all characters, and finally to associate any death with a narrative purpose and an emotional impact. Theres always an intention behind how much you see, and how graphic the violence is, and how much you dont see.
When theres a very troubling box cutter moment, that is very intentionally me rubbing your face in it, because the character has to watch this. Its another one of the transitions from victim to killer, and it is not fun. You have to watch a very graphic thing take place thats unsettling. Whereas theres some parts where we need to show that this whole movie got very real, and theres things like an insert close-up of a disgusting machete wound that haunts people. Thats the intention. Its like, Oh, this is not the film I thought it was. Now I cant see whats coming, and Im terrified.
Its very much intended to throw people off guard, and not just to do that, but I let it go all the waysplatter the entire room. Theres always a reason, down to the editing. Its tough when youre with your editor watching these scenes over and over, and having to trim single frames from these shots. It was definitely about crafting the overall experience, and making it insanely intense. I want to pretend Im going to uncharted territory, and it may or may not be, but I definitely wrote the film with a disregard for formula as far as how it would suppress my creative intentions. And once in a while, I would embrace formula because I just felt like this movies getting too dreadful. I need a rock n roll moment. I need something out of these characters. Im my own studio. Jeremy, we need something thats going to make people clap, and you feel its natural, and thats where the whole paintball thing came from. Not to give spoilers away, but there needs to be a turning-of-the-tables moment. There needs to be something where you can sort of feel an elation, and not just dread. When you come out a film, and you feel it was extremely intense, and you survived, there is an exhilaration that comes with that. But if you just feel like its been nothing but a gut punch over and over, then its just dread, and its very unsatisfying. Its definitely a fine line.
Paste: When you were cutting it, were there any movies you were looking to in terms of this type of pacing and sense of dread?
Saulnier: I definitely referred to Straw Dogs, because what I like about it is that its a very thin plot, and its very rich in experiencefilms like that. I didnt watch Assault On Precinct 13 until after I finished the screenplay because I was scared it might be too relevant to what I was doing, but it ended up being a good textual reference. And again, its a very thin plot. Its just the scenario, and itunfolds, but the texture is so gritty and awesome. I was really inspired by that. Once I wrote it, it was just its own thing. Im always influenced by certain aesthetics. I like the Coen Brothers for the way they tell stories. I like early Michael Mann for the grounded realism and research he doesthe authenticity that he creates.
The Coen Brothers have this amazing visual language thats always spoken to me as far as how they tell stories. And John Carpenter was just a big influence in terms of the tone of the movie. People have been saying they want Green Room to come out on VHS because thats what it reminds them of. I miss that type of movie from the 80s. I wasnt trying to pay homage to the point where it would be a throwback, self-aware, retro movie, but I wanted to evoke the very same feelings that I felt when I was a kid and had access to The Thing or Halloween or Dawn of the Dead. Theyre movies with a lot of grit and atmosphere, and they just scared the shit out of me.
***
(12-2-07)
*** A lot of people may not realize that I have done a little (observed, recorded) mini live debate with the renowned Reformed Baptist anti-Catholic champion James White, in his chat room. Since then (perhaps as a result of this experience?) he has turned down two further challenges to do another one, where I gave him a handicap of more time to question than I would have (in the first challenge, I offered him all night long if he wished). The second one was even a double cross-ex format, designed to make him stop running and to put his money where his mouth is (as one who constantly sings the praises of the glories of cross-examination as a vehicle of undiluted truth and exposure of abominable error). All to no avail. * This encounter took place on 29 December 2000, and came about spontaneously as a result of the dissipation of the prearranged format of a debate that I had with another anti-Catholic (it ended prematurely, by his choice). White then jumped in and we went at it for a few moments. The topic (determined by Whites relentless questioning) was Mary in the Church fathers). I didnt have all the information required at my fingertips and so was slightly off-guard at first. * But then I sort of turned the tables and went on the offensive myself, puncturing holes in Whites flawed analysis and making him answer a few of my questions. Just when I thought it was getting really interesting indeed (and fun, too, because I love a challenge and love answering on my feet), Whites computer (far as we can tell) malfunctioned and he was never heard from again. I hung around for quite a while, chatting with others in his own room, awaiting a return that never came. * I thought that it would be worthwhile to take a look at my own live encounter with White and to do a running commentary on how he used sophistry and flawed information (or mis- or disinformation) in my own case. Its most illuminating as to his pathetic methodology in debate, that many many people have observed and objected to. In my original footnotes, I had noted that Whites rapid-fire questioning and constant switching of topics and subtle changing even of terms within topics hardly allowed me to deal adequately with such a complex subject . * Bishop Whites words will be in red . My responses at the time will be in black. My current commentary on Whites sophistry and illogic will be in blue , with brackets.
*
*****
Mr. Armstrong, care to dialogue a bit? * no, no more than it was for the Fathers who appealed to apostolic Tradition. * Remember that statement Dave? * Yes. * Dave: The earliest reference in all patristic writing to something passed down from the Apostles that is not in Scripture is Irenaeus insistence that those who knew the Apostles confirmed that John 8 teaches that Jesus was more than 50 years of age at his death. Rome has rejected this idea. If tradition can be corrupted in its first instance, upon what basis do you affirm the idea that such doctrines as the Bodily Assumption, without witness for over 500 years, is truly apostolic? * Who claims that this is the first instance of Tradition passed down? Now we are in areas that require research to answer, so I can hardly do that on the spot. * Well, if you can find an explicit statement that is earlier, Id like to see it. To my knowledge, it is the earliest example. * I doubt that..the principle is explicitly biblical in the first place. If indeed the notion [Tradition passed down] is in the Bible, then that is the earliest instance, not Irenaeus. * Im sorry, I must have been unclear: I was referring to a statement by an early Church Father concerning an alleged extra-biblical tradition passed down from the Apostles. And I believe Irenaeus claim is the earliest.but that point aside. * Okay, that may be (I dont know). *
[In fact, St. Clement of Rome described an extra-biblical book as Scripture (I assume he would hold that the Bible was passed down from the Apostles and that Bishop White would grant the point). In his Letter to the Corinthians (aka First Clement), dated 95-96 A.D., he writes (23:3):
*
Let this Scripture be far from us where he says . . . .
*
Then he proceeds to cite a passage which is not in present-day Scripture (it is also cited in 2 Clement 11:2-4 not considered to have been written by St. Clement, but perhaps the oldest Christian sermon extant: c. 100 A.D. -, where it is described as the prophetic word). The famous Protestant scholar J.B. Lightfoot speculated that it was from the lost book of Eldad and Modat mentioned by Hermas (Vis. 2.3.4).
*
Any citation, in fact, of a book as Scripture, whether it was or not, is an extra-biblical tradition since the biblical books (as decided by the Church and tradition) never list the books. White surely should have known this. But he wants to pass off this nonsense that Irenaeus thinking Jesus lived to fifty is the earliest reference in all patristic writing to something passed down from the Apostles that is not in Scripture. Its not so. The tradition of the biblical canon itself disproves it.
*
Furthermore, Clement teaches apostolic succession in 42:1-4 and 44:1-4 (Our apostles . . . gave the offices a permanent character; that is, if they should die, other approved men
should succeed to their ministry . . .), a notion that White rejects and regards as unbiblical.Finally, according to the eminent 19th-century Protestant patristics scholar Brooke Foss Westcott, there is some indication in Justin Martyr (100-165) of acceptance of an apostolic Tradition, including an oral component. After an exhaustive, remarkable 75-page exposition of Justins understanding of the canon of the New Testament. Westcott concludes:
*
There are indeed traces of the recognition of an authoritative Apostolic doctrine in Justin, but it cannot be affirmed from the form of his language that he looked upon this as contained in a written New Testament.
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(A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1980, from the 1889 sixth edition, 172) ]
*
I assume, then, you are not familiar with this particular issue? Okay, then let us use another example. Basil said that it was an apostolic tradition to baptize three times, facing east, forward. Upon what basis do you reject his testimony, if you do?
*
[again, I could hardly answer on the spot, completely unprepared, not even knowing this exchange was gonna take place. I had prepared myself to debate someone else. But note how White uses the rapid-fire approach. Its the illusion of appearance of strength via mere method: one of the oldest tricks of sophistry in the book. This is the second thing he quickly introduces. Then he introduces a third: whether Mary sinned]
*
Patristic consensus over what period of time? For example, the patristic consensus through the end of the fourth century was that Mary had committed acts of sin. That is no longer the view taken by Rome.
*
[this is sheer nonsense (the second sentence above), as I will proceed to show, even on the spot, because it is so outrageously false]
*
The patristic period is generally considered to go up to John Damascene, no?
*
That all depends. :-)
*
[I dont know what White thinks it depends on. According to The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (p. 504): the patristic period is generally held to be closed with St. Isidore of Seville in the West and St. John of Damascus in the East. White likes historian Philip Schaff, who described John Damascene as the last of the Greek Fathers (History of the Christian Church, Vol. IV: Chapter 14, section 144, p. 626). So why does he question (and smile about) this assumption of mine?]
*
No; some Fathers thought she sinned, but I dont believe they were the majority, by any means.
*
[I was absolutely correct]
*
Would it follow, then, that you believe the patristic consensus up through John Damascene supports such doctrines as the Immaculate Conception and the Bodily Assumption?
*
[Note the sophistical topic-switching again. This is quite clever, albeit cynically transparent to anyone who understands rhetoric and debate. Having already introduced his third topic in about as many minutes: the actual sin of Mary and what Church fathers held on that, and having introduced a false summary of patristic views on that score, he now shifts to the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption: the first being a greatly advanced development of the sinlessness of Mary and the second being another doctrine altogether. Im now supposed to discuss without notes and preparation now, five relatively complex topics at once?]
*
Can you name 5 or 10 who thought that?
*
[I was still referring to the previous sins of Mary question. White would fire out a new question (like having 15 peas in a pea shooter) before I barely answered his last one. Anyone can see the foolishness of such a juvenile method of supposedly seeking truth]
*
Yes. Origen, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Basil. Big names. :-) Even Anselm held Mary was born with original sin.
*
How about western fathers? Those are all eastern guys. :-)
*
[Now note the manifest sophistry here, as I will keep pointing out in the exchange itself. Whites original (non-factual) claim was: the patristic consensus through the end of the fourth century was that Mary had committed acts of sin. Starting on this false premise, when asked to name names, he cites (correctly) four eastern fathers and no western ones. But patristic consensus includes both east and west. Therefore, if he cant come up with western fathers believing as he claims, his assertion collapses. Its as simple as that. Case closed. And White not only has to just name one or two fathers to prove his point; he has to establish consensus, which is far more difficult to do. But he quotes four men from the east and then a westerner who isnt even in the patristic period.This is when the tide started to decisively turn in the debate, because I knew from the patristic knowledge in my head that White was out to sea and faltering even in his factuality, let alone any arguments he wished to ground upon these alleged facts that are actually falsehoods]
*
Anselm isnt. :-)
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Anselm was not a father.
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[Bingo!]
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Lets hope not. :-) He was under orders. just kidding.
*
[his humor was more successful than his arguments and pseudo-facts. I suggest that White stick to stand-up comic routines rather than attempted serious patristic argument]
*
All youre doing now is helping to support Roman primacy and orthodoxy. The east had a host of errors. They split from Rome five times, and were wrong in every case by [the criteria of] their own later orthodox beliefs.
*
Hmm, so you are switching now to a Western consensus?
*
No, but your citing of only eastern fathers hardly suggests that this is overall patristic consensus, does it?
*
[this is ludicrous sophistry. I made the rather obvious point. White was the one claiming patristic consensus. Anyone knows that this means all fathers: east and west. He cites only eastern ones; I call him on it, and then he makes this dumb remark that I am calling for (or switching to) a western consensus. Unbelievable . . . but then it shows that he was on the ropes and was trying all the more to exercise sophistry to extricate himself from his foot firmly entrenched in his rather big mouth. I dont think he is even conscious that he is doing this. Like Bill Clinton and lying, for Bishop White sophistry has so long been the trick of his trade in debating Catholics that it just comes out like breathing or blinking without having to think about it at all. He always has to oppose the Catholic, no matter how silly and absurd his objection may be. This is an absolutely classic case of poor debating and arguing on his part]
*
I would dispute that, actually,
*
[fine, then make an argument; but he never does. Instead he moves onto something else. The slippery fish / moving target / 101 topics routine, perfected by folks like Jehovahs Witness evangelists and James White . . .]
*
But Id like to stick to the issue Ive raised here.
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[White talking with a straight face, apparently, actually serious about sticking to the issue, after how he has behaved, is about the equivalent of an alcoholic saying we shouldnt drink liquor . . .]
*
Is it your belief that these two dogmas are apostolic in origin?
*
First name me western fathers who thought Mary sinned, since you brought this up.
*
[my attempt to keep White on the subject and forcing him to face and to try to alleviate the difficulties I had raised for his position . . . And remember, I had hardly any experience at all in this sort of debate, whereas White was the big champion with dozens of oral debates in his past (as he never tires of bragging about). But he was faltering and choking and doing rather badly by this point . . . ]
*
Actually, Augustines influence regarding the universality of original sin had to be overcome for the Immaculate Conception to be contemplated and codified, sir. :-)
*
[lacking any good answer for my actual question, White obfuscates and engages in obscurantism (tried and true methods of the sophist) by changing the topic to original sin and Augustines view, rather than actual sin of Mary, which was his own original claim as to patristic consensus. This is very clever. But we can all see through it, especially when analyzed in this fashion. White loves post-mortem debate analysis. Well, now we have given him a bit of his own medicine]
*
But thats a separate issue. Did Augustine think Mary sinned?
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[note how I brought it right back to my actual question, Ted Koppel-style, refusing to play Whites game]
*
No, not in her personal life. But he did believe she contracted original sin, correct?
*
[the quick answer and then quickly moving on to another separate question, so as to do some quick damage control . . .]
*
There is the distinction between actual sin and original sin in Marys case.
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Do you consider Tertullian a Western?
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Yes.
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Would you include Hilary? J.N.D. Kelly lists them both in that category. I think that makes six, does it not?
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Im not sure, but you started by discussing acts of sin, now you are switching to original sin.
*
Actually, for both Tertullian and Hilary, it would be acts of sin.
*
Okay, so you have two?
*
[I wrote in my commentary soon after the debate:
*
So Bishop White offers one western father (who held a quite mild opinion on the subject not exactly a spectacular, bold dissent), and another in his heretical period, plus four eastern fathers (which I was already generally aware of one always finds exceptions to the rule). This is what he considers a patristic consensus. I consider it a pathetic argument. Ludwig Ott states that the western patristic consensus was unanimous. Thus, Bishop White is trapped by the facts of history, not any rhetorical brilliance on my part. ]
*
Yes, two.
*
[how, then, is this a consensus? I recently wrote a book compiling patristic beliefs, and listed sixty Church fathers who are widely cited as such, up through John Damascene). White has provided us with exactly six names of fathers who held that Mary sinned (and of the two westerners, one later became a Montanist heretic and the other spoke of it just once, and rather mildly), or about 10% of the fathers (or reasonable facsimile thereof). And he wants us to think this is a consensus. How stupid does he think we are, anyway? Part of the method of sophistry (for those aware they are doing it, and I dont think White is), is assuming that hearers are so dumb and ignorant that they can be fooled by the method in the first place]
*
May I ask how many you have that positively testify of the later Roman belief in the same time-period?
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One second.consulting some papers.
*
[White didnt give me any time to even look. He went right on to the next thing in his fertile mind]
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Be that as it may, does it not follow from these considerations that there is no positive consensus upon this issue? The only relevant answer to that would be to ask, Who wrote on the specific question of Marys sinlessness? Not many.
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[in fact, after I consulted my research later, I wrote in the original commentary:
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As for Church Fathers who refer to the Blessed Virgin Mary as the New Eve (Eve was originally sinless or immaculate), Second Eve, sinless, spotless, pure, without stain, immaculate, the Ark of the Covenant, or (negatively) who never attributed any actual sin to her, we find the following:
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Hippolytus, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory Nyssa, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, Athanasius, Jerome, Eusebius, Ephraim, Ambrose, Augustine, Proclus, Theodotus, Peter Chrysologus, Andrew of Crete, Fulgentius, Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, Germanus, John Damascene.
*
That makes at least 22 fathers in the affirmative, compared to 5 who attributed sin to Mary (not counting the Montanist heretic Tertullian).]
*
Was this in Tertullians Montanist or semi-Montanist period? About how many fathers were there, in your estimation?
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The Tertullian citation is De carne Chr. 7.
*
[Again, from my original footnotes to the debate:
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Sure enough, The Flesh of Christ (dated 208-212 A.D.) is from Tertullians semi-Montanist period. Protestants often fail to note the different theological periods with regard to citing Tertullian. Many will conveniently ignore this if a Tertullian quote suits their purpose (or else some are ignorant of the dating and/or of his later heresy altogether). Whichever the case with Bishop White, he failed to answer my question during the dialogue, thus illustrating another reason why these clarifying notes are important and useful. What I suspected turned out to be true. Whether Bishop White knew this beforehand or not, we dont know, as he didnt say.
*
White never answered my question about approximately how many fathers there were]
*
How many say she was without sin? Thats what you are asking? Actual sin?
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I think you can see my point, can you not, Mr. Armstrong? If these concepts were, in fact, passed down through the episcopate, how could such widely differing church leaders be ignorant of these things?
*
[but here he simply repeats a falsehood; apparently believing it to be true. The sinlessness of Mary is stated by many fathers. It is implicit in the second Eve motif. These things began to be developed so early that good Protestant historian Philip Schaff states that the development of the orthodox Mariology and Mariolatry originated as early as the second century ( History of the Christian Church , Vol. III, 414). If the fathers hadnt been spewing all this abominable Catholic stuff then obviously Schaff wouldnt describe it as Mariolatry. This proves that Schaff thought it was indeed there. And the Mariology includes sinlessness. Its easy to document, contra White: *
Eusebius, the great Church historian . . . calls her panagia, all-holy. (PG, 24, 1033B)
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Athanasius: . . . pure and unstained Virgin . . . (On the Incarnation of the Word, 8)
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O noble Virgin, truly you are greater than any other greatness. For who is your equal in greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word? To whom among all creatures shall I compare you, O Virgin? You are greater than them all O Covenant, clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the Ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which divinity resides. (Homily of the Papyrus of Turin, 71, 216)
*
Ephraem: Thou and thy mother are the only ones who are totally beautiful in every respect; for in thee, O Lord, there is no spot, and in thy Mother no stain. (Nisibene Hymns, 27, v. 8) *
Gregory Nazianzen: He was conceived by the Virgin, who had first been purified by the Spirit in soul and body; for, as it was fitting that childbearing should receive its share of honor, so it was necessary that virginity should receive even greater honor. (Sermon 38, 13)
*
Gregory of Nyssa: It was, to divulge by the manner of His Incarnation this great secret; that purity is the only complete indication of the presence of God and of His coming, and that no one can in reality secure this for himself, unless he has altogether estranged himself from the passions of the flesh. What happened in the stainless Mary when the fulness of the Godhead which was in Christ shone out through her, that happens in every soul that leads by rule the virgin life. (On Virginity, 2; NPNF 2, Vol. V, 344)
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[T]he power of the Most High, through the Holy Spirit, overshadowed the human nature and was formed therein; that is to say, the portion of flesh was formed in the immaculate Virgin. (Against Apollinaris, 6) *
Ambrose: . . . Mary, a Virgin not only undefiled but a Virgin whom grace has made inviolate, free of every stain of sin. (Commentary on Psalm 118, 22, 30)
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Jerome: There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a flower shall grow out of his roots. The rod is the mother of the Lordsimple, pure, unsullied; drawing no germ of life from without but fruitful in singleness like God Himself Set before you the blessed Mary, whose surpassing purity made her meet to be the mother of the Lord. (Letter XXII. To Eustochium, 19, 38; NPNF 2, Vol. VI, 29, 39)
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Augustine: We must except the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honour to the Lord; for from Him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular was conferred upon her who had the merit to conceive and bear Him who undoubtedly had no sin. Well, then, if, with this exception of the Virgin, we could only assemble together all the forementioned holy men and women, and ask them whether they lived without sin whilst they were in this life, what can we suppose would be their answer? (A Treatise on Nature and Grace, chapter 42 [XXXVI]; NPNF 1, Vol. V)
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Cyril of Alexandria: Hail, Mary Theotokos, Virgin-Mother, lightbearer, uncorrupt vessel . . . Hail Mary, you are the most precious creature in the whole world; hail, Mary, uncorrupt dove; hail, Mary, inextinguishable lamp; for from you was born the Sun of justice . . . (Homily 11 at the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus)
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Theodotus: Innocent virgin, spotless, without defect, untouched, unstained, holy in body and in soul, like a lily-flower sprung among thorns, unschooled in the wickedness of Eve . . . clothed with divine grace as with a cloak . . . (Homily 6, 11)
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Leo the Great: For the uncorrupt nature of Him that was born had to guard the primal virginity of the Mother, and the infused power of the Divine Spirit had to preserve in spotlessness and holiness that sanctuary which He had chosen for Himself . . . (Sermon XXII: On the Feast of the Nativity, Part II; NPNF 2, Vol. XII)
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Gregory the Great: The most blessed and ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God . . . has completely surpassed the height of every elect creature. (In I Regum, 1, 5)
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Andrew of Crete: . . . alone wholly without stain . . . (Canon for the Conception of Anne)
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John Damascene: O most blessed loins of Joachim from which came forth a spotless seed! O glorious womb of Anne in which a most holy offspring grew. (Homily I on the Nativity of Mary) ]
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The same way Luther was ignorant about baptismal regeneration, and Calvin of adult baptism. :-) Neither got it right, according to you.
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[meant to convey the blatant double standard in Whites previous question. I could disprove his claim about the Mariology of the Fathers, but he couldnt change the fact that both Luther and Calvin got major things wrong, by his own Baptist reckoning, some 700 years after the patristic period. In other words, anti-catholics always want to carp on and on about supposed late inventions while ignoring the host of those introduced by their own founders]
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Well, it would seem that if you wish to substantiate a dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the task would be rather easy to demonstrate a positive witness to the belief in the patristic period, would it not? *
I think this can be done, but probably not to your satisfaction.
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[one must understand that the sinlessness of Mary is the developmental kernel of the Immaculate Conception, which extends the divine grace given to her also to removal by God of original sin. No one is claiming that the immaculate conception is in the Fathers. But White, remember, denied even that denial of actual sin was the consensus]
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Does it follow, then, that you parallel individual Reformational leaders with the early Fathers, the very ones entrusted with apostolic tradition? Or was that rhetorical?
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I was making a point about noted leaders and teachers differing. We would expect that in the Fathers to an extent, being human; nevertheless, there is still overall consensus.
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Have you ever listened to my debate with Gerry Matatics on the subject of the Marian dogmas, Mr. Armstrong?
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No. Did you win that one? :-)
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Its on the web..Gerry said I did, actually. :-) As did Karl Keating. Does that count? :-) *
I can name names as to who believed in sinlessness, but I dont have it at my fingertips
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Be that as it may, during the course of the debate I repeatedly asked Gerry for a single early Father who believed as he believes, dogmatically, on Mary. I was specifically focused upon the two most recent dogmas, the Immaculate Conception and the Bodily Assumption.
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Of course, if you are looking for a full-blown doctrine of Immaculate Conception, you wont find it.
* [thus I make the point about doctrinal development. The trouble with this argument of Whites is that he wants to discount Catholic Mariology because it developed relatively late, while at the same time he fully accepts Protestant novelties like sola Scriptura and sola fide which are virtually nonexistent in the fathers. He has no trouble accepting all those truly late doctrines, while objecting that ours develop, just like Christology, trinitarianism and the canon of Scripture also did] *
How would you answer my challenge? Did any early Father believe as you believe on this topic?
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The consensus, in terms of the kernels of the belief [i.e., its essence], are there overall. I would expect it to be the case that any individual would not completely understand later developments.
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So many generations lived and died without holding to what is now dogmatically defined?
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[White doesnt get it, that all doctrines develop. Since he does not, and tries to make hay out of nothing, for rhetorical and polemical purposes, I provided a parallel by bringing up a late-developing doctrine that he accepts: the NT canon]
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Did any father of the first three centuries accept all 27 books of the NT and no others? *
Three centuries..you would not include Athanasius?
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I think his correct list was in the 4th century [indeed, it was in 367, and he was born around 296], but at any rate, my point is established.
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[White couldnt even name one, because there was no correct list before 367, and even White, with his mastery of sophistry, couldnt change that fact or mask it. Thus, many generations lived and died without holding to what is now dogmatically defined by the Church about the NT canon. Mariology is unfairly subjected to a standard that White wont apply to his own belief in the NT canon, as received by Catholic tradition. I wrote in my original commentary:
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[T]he present-day perspicuous NT canon took longer to finalize than trinitarianism and the divinity of the Holy Spirit! But I guess a consensus of one in the year 367 is good enough for Bishop White, provided that it is harmonious with his own largely 16th-century-derived Baptist version of Christianity. This is all doctrinal development, pure and simple. But Protestants for some odd reason so often wish to ignore it when it touches upon their own peculiar doctrines. * How is it that Bishop White is so concerned about five fathers attributing fairly minor and very rare sin to the Blessed Virgin Mary, while in the late period from 250-325, the perspicuous biblical books of Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation were still being widely disputed in the Church Universal? Is that state of affairs not far more fatal to Protestant claims concerning Scripture Alone, than minor dissent on Mary is to the Catholic position? ]
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How many fathers of the same period denied baptismal regeneration or infant baptism?
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[White knows he is on shaky ground here, too, when pressed about other Protestant parallels of late-arriving doctrines and so he obfuscates]
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The issue there would be how many addressed the issue (many did not). But are you paralleling these things with what you just admitted were but kernels?
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I f even Scripture was unclear that early on, that makes mincemeat of your critique that a lack of explicit Marian dogma somehow disproves Catholic Mariology.
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[BOOM! This was the clinching remark, as far as I was concerned then, and now. In my opinion, White lost this debate at this point, if not earlier]
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Ill address that allegation in a moment. :-)
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[He never did. Alas, technical computer problems soon whisked White away, safe from annoying and revealing cross-examination questioning. Ah, but what could have been. The if onlys of history . . .]
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By the way, would you like that specific Irenaeus reference to look up? Just in passing?
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[who cares , by this point? A desperate return to an earlier futile argument . . .]
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I can look it upI have enough resources. The question of this dialogue is whether we are gonna address topics which require heavy research.. That is more appropriate for a paper. If I were answering all your questions in a paper I would have spent a good three hours already. A guy like Joe Gallegos could instantly address questions about particular Fathers beliefs. but Ill still give you names who taught Marys sinlessness, if you like.
* [I wrote in my footnotes to the debate: * Bishop White seemed to require me to give rapid answers to his lightning-quick and ever-changing technical questions concerning particular patristic beliefs. That was not possible (I wouldnt be able to type fast enough even if I had all the answers in my head), but I believe I managed to de-fang him by the use of analogy, which has been fleshed out to full effect in these notes.]
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I was thinking of the others looking on. :-) It is chapter 22, section 5, of Irenaeus work, Against Heresies, Book 2, I believe.
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So where do we go from here?
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Anyway.You seem to think that if there is disagreement on any issue, this means the Scripture is unclear, correct?
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[another topic introduced; White deftly avoids the devastating implications of my previous progression of analogical argument. The man knows when he is bested; he proves it by his change-the-subject tactics. On the other hand, when he senses he is prevailing in a line of argument, he keeps honing in for the kill. Anyone can see which tack he took with me. He was on the ropes, faltering, failing, floundering away . . . ]
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No; rather massive disagreement on many issues seems to me to fly in the face of this alleged perspicuity. I think Scripture is clear, by and large, actually, but human fallibility will lead to hermeneutic relativism, thus requiring authoritative interpreters.
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[the nuances and complexity of the actual Catholic view of Bible and Tradition were and are lost on White. I should have known. Why even bother? But, of course, others were observing, too]
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What do you do with Peters words? 2 Pet 3:15-16:
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and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. (NAS)
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A good description of many Protestants! How does this bolster perspicuity?
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If the untaught and unstable distort the Scriptures, then what can the taught and stable do, of necessity?
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It doesnt follow logically that if the unstable distort the Scripture, that the stable will always get it right, does it?
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()()() James is Away. Lord willing, he will return. :) ()()()
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[what a shame that he could neither stick around nor stick to any given subject, to reach any sort of conclusion. I think it is unarguable that he used many techniques of sophistry, obfuscation, and obscurantism in this pathetic exchange. I should have made an analysis like this years ago, along with my footnotes. Im really glad I did so now, so as to give concrete demonstration of the shortcomings in Whites debate method that so many Catholics have observed and become fed up with by now]
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Meta Description: I prove that anti-Catholic apologist & debater James White used indefensible techniques of sophistry in our lone live chat.
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Meta Keywords: Anti-Catholicism, Anti-Catholic, James White, sophistry, debates, dialogue, illegitimate discourse, lousy arguments, logic, fallacious arguments, fallacies, evasion, topic-switching, intellectual dishonesty
Patna: Marching ahead on his path to avenge his less than graceful ouster from the Chief Minister's post, Jitan Ram Manjhi on Monday maintained his assault on his former idol Nitish Kumar saying the former Janata Dal U leader made him the Chief Minister so he could be his mask but in the end it was he who succeeded in unmasking Kumar.
Exhorting voters to punish Kumar by voting against him at the ballot box in the upcoming Assembly elections, Manjhi, while speaking at the 'Garib Swabhiman Rally' sponsored by his Hindustan Awam Morcha (HAM) at Patna's Gandhi Maidan, said that Kumar wanted him to be his front-man to do his 'dirty' jobs but in the end, he figured out his game plan and decided to be his own man instead of being pulled by his puppet master.
{gallery}newsimages2015/apr/042015{/gallery}"I am asking you to teach Nitish Kumar a lesson for scrapping several decisions taken by me that were meant for the uplifting the poor, downtrodden, dalits, women, and people with no voice or representation. What he did was reprehensible and must be punished severely for betraying the trust of the people," Manjhi, who was the Chief Minister of Bihar for short nine months, roared.
Continuing to reveal the 'real face' of Nitish Kumar, Manjhi said the government was paying exorbitant price for various schemes that could be completed in less than half of the projected cost. "The entire government machinery and contractors are involved in this scam," he said.
Accusing Kumar of initiating non-essential projects like a new museum in Patna and a new Assembly building instead of spending money in welfare schemes, the former Chief Minister said that he failed to understand what the purpose of a new Legislative building was when the existing one was big enough to accommodate all 243 legislators.
"This same building used to accommodate 324 MLAs in the undivided Bihar but suddenly, according to Nitish Kumar, it's not big enough. He has money to do all these unnecessary things but he is always short of fund for real development for which he continues to blame the Center," Manjhi said.
Demanding a CBI probe in the 'Paddy Procurement Scam', the former JD-U leader said that under Nitish Kumar, Bihar had become a cesspool of corruption and only the voters could rid Bihar from his clutches.
Manjhi also took Nitish administration to task on the dwindling law and order condition in Bihar saying cases of rape, murder, and armed robbery had reached a new height in the state while Kumar continued to keep his eyes closed from the ground realities.
Former ministers in the Nitish and Manjhi government Narendra Singh, Shahid Ali Khan, Samrat Chowdhary, Nitish Mishra, Brishan Patel, Mahachandra Prasad and Vinay Bihari, along with suspended JD-U leaders Gyanendra Singh Gyanu, and Rajiv Ranjan were among many who were present on the occasion.
Interestingly, Lalu Prasad Yadav's estranged brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav was also seen on the stage with Manjhi.
Patna: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday was unanimously elected the President of the Janata Dal U after incumbent Sharad Yadav opted not to seek the position for a fourth term.
Kumar, who was already the de facto leader of the party with Yadav largely seen as a rubber stamp President, now holds all executive power making him the strongest man within the party with no one above him.
This is the first time a Bihari has become the face of the party as both Yadav and his predecessor George Fernandes were outsiders though both made Bihar their political home contesting Parliamentary and state elections from various constituencies in the state.
Kumar, who is said to nurture dream of becoming the Prime Minister of India ideally replacing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and current PM Narendra Modi is hoping to carry out talks with other parties, including the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha, to enhance his political influence outside Bihar and onto a wider national stage to take on his saffron nemesis.
Meanwhile, Yadav, who earlier resigned from his post, made it clear that he was only resigning from the party post and not from politics itself.
"I have always kept my politics above the party line and now I will be able to serve the party even more vigorously to make it even more stronger," an emotional Yadav said.
Yadav was elected the JD-U President first in 2006 and for the third time in 2013.
Pattaya Mail became the first English language newspaper in Pattaya and the Eastern Seaboard of Thailand when the inaugural issue hit the streets on July 23, 1993. The aim of the newspaper was, and still is, to represent the area in a fair and unbiased way by telling the truth. Still in its infancy, Pattaya Mail has enjoyed a steady growth since 1993, and its readership base, which was once restricted to only Pattaya, has expanded to include the entire Eastern Seaboard and even more recently into other regions in the Kingdom. Topics covered in each issue of the weekly newspaper include bold yet fair reporting on crime and the local administration, governmental issues, and the constant expansion of Pattaya and the Eastern Seaboard.
Pattaya Mail also realises its role as a community minded newspaper and each week reserves space for community happenings, social events, local sports, and an adequate amount of features and informative pieces created by some of the area's best writers. Pattaya Mail is also proud of having been able to expand its readership via the World Wide Web. Expansion has additionally occurred into the electronic media via the Pattaya Mail Channel, broadcast on the Pattaya's cable TV network. We look forward to the inevitable evolution the future has in store for us with sincere optimism.
Inside the ancient town hall of Siena, Italy, the walls hold a series of magnificent 14th-century frescoes showing the effects of good government and bad. One side depicts a prosperous city-state, where justice and tolerance prevail in the Tuscan countryside. The other is ruled by a horned, fanged figure, the streets deserted and scary.
We saw our own version of this allegory with the two Americas last week one going backward, the other stepping into tomorrow. We saw a retreat to bigotry in states dooming themselves to decline. And in other states, we saw a way for people to get around a do-nothing Congress controlled by Know-Nothing throwbacks.
First, the good. On Monday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed a bill that will eventually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, lifting the earnings of 2.3 million New Yorkers, and he authorized one of the strongest paid parental leave laws in the nation. On the same day, Gov. Jerry Brown of California put his signature to a $15 minimum wage plan in the most populous state. Then San Francisco became the first place in the United States to require businesses to provide paid leave for new parents.
Now, the bad. Following North Carolinas lead, another state, Mississippi, passed a law allowing people and institutions to deny services to gay people. With this measure, Mississippi, already one of the poorest states in the nation, ensures that good job providers will stay away.
Indeed, PayPal dropped plans to bring 400 jobs to North Carolina after politicians gave people a green light to discriminate. And a host of corporate leaders signed a letter on Wednesday explaining why Mississippi and North Carolina would be shunned. Such laws are bad for employees, the representatives of companies ranging from Whole Foods to General Electric wrote, and bad for business.
Next door, in Alabama, the embattled Republican governor signed a bill earlier this year preventing cities from raising the minimum wage. This after Birmingham dared to dream of a day when its lowest-paid workers could make $10 an hour.
Nearly all the states with the highest percentage of minimum wage workers full-time jobholders making $290 a week, before taxes are in the South. These are also the same states that refuse to expand Medicaid to allow the working poor to get health care. And its in the same cradle of the old Confederacy where discriminatory bills are rising. Dont blame the cities; from Birmingham to Charlotte, people are trying to open doors to higher wages and tolerance of gays, only to be rebuffed at the state level.
Raising the minimum wage is not a panacea, as Gov. Brown noted. But he called it a moral imperative, one that will allow full-time workers at the low end to better provide for their children.
Good companies feel the same way. Costco just announced that it would raise entry-level wages to $13.50 an hour at a cost to stockholders of a penny a share in the current quarter. One penny. Twitter will soon start giving full-time employees 20 weeks of paid parental leave.
Lifting wages for low-end workers and bringing the United States into the 21st century on family leave should be no-brainers. And yet, Congress refuses to move on President Barack Obamas call for paid parental leave for federal employees, and will not raise the minimum wage beyond the paltry $7.25 an hour.
Still, people are blowing past the obstructionists. Since Obama first called on Congress to move forward on wages, in 2013, 18 states and at least 40 cities have acted on their own. Expect to see family leave laws ripple across the land as well.
Now, maybe paying the working poor a little more will be a job-killer, as Republicans assert. Maybe mandating parental leave will inhibit business start-ups. Sure. If you believe doing nothing, in the wake of 20 years of declining wages and a harder quality of life, is better than doing something, this is your home: the geography of despair.
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David Bowdich, the FBIs highest-ranking agent in Los Angeles and a key figure in the San Bernardino mass shooting investigation, is leaving California to become the third-highest ranking officer in the bureau.
It came up a few months ago, Bowdich said Saturday afternoon, as he was out walking his dog, a day after packing up his office.
FBI Director James B. Comey invited him out to Washington in February, he said, and offered him the associate deputy director position.
He felt we had managed to get where we needed to go at that point with the investigation into the Dec. 2 terrorist attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, which left 14 dead and 22 wounded.
He said, Look, you can support it from here, and have greater impact on the organization, Bowdich said. Ive been very focused on the families and, quite frankly, I told the families that Id be here to the end, because I never dreamed this would happen. I never raised my hand for this and didnt expect it to happen.
Leaving the families of the Dec. 2 victims is the thing that gave him the most pause in taking his new position, he said.
I think its important to me that the families know that there will be no light between the shields as far as we handle this as an organization going forward, Bowdich said. If we were not in a place where I was reasonably comfortable, I would not go. That doesnt mean its over: far from it, far from it.
He expects the prosecution of Enrique Marquez Jr., who is accused of providing the assault rifles that Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik used in the Dec. 2 attack, will likely take a long time.
About 20 agents are still combing through evidence related to the case.
Were trying to make sure we leave nothing undone, Bowdich said. Theres a lot going on behind the scenes to make sure weve examined every piece of evidence, be it digital or physical.
The piece of evidence thats been most in the news of late is the iPhone 5C issued to Farook by the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, for which he worked as a public health inspector.
Privacy advocates and Apple Inc., the maker of the iPhone, contend the federal government didnt really expect to find any useful evidence on the phone Farook and Malik destroyed their personal phones before the attack and a hard drive removed from their personal computer has never been found.
Instead, privacy advocates say, the government wanted Apple to get around encryption features on the phone to establish a legal precedent that would let federal agencies compel cellphone makers to do the same going forward.
Not so, said Bowdich.
Right now, we continue to extract the data from this phone, he said. I think its important that the public understands that it was not our goal to draw a line in the sand on encryption. What it was, was a piece of evidence.
Bowdich has been in charge of the Los Angeles office since September 2012. A former New Mexico detective, he has worked for the FBI since 1995. In his new role, he will oversee most of the bureaus so-called non-operational branches and divisions.
Dave is a first-class guy, San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said Saturday. He did a tremendous job of keeping us together as a team. At the end of the day, (the Dec. 2 investigation) was going to become a federal investigation, but Dave went out of his way to make sure we were kept in the loop and stayed a unified front.
Bowdich will be replaced by Deirdre Fike, who currently heads up the FBI office in Anchorage.
Shes trading in her snowshoes for her flip-flops, he said. Shes a solid agent and she will be every bit as committed.
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Recent rains and water conservation successes get only partial credit for state water officials announcement Thursday, April 7, lowering some water suppliers savings targets.
Lobbying by Inland water suppliers and others around California to persuade the State Water Resources Control Board to consider climate, growth and past efforts to reduce use and expand potable water supplies also played a role.
Public utilities and water districts have been pressing the state agency to lower the 25 percent statewide conservation mandate that took effect last June during Californias fourth year of severe drought, or to make individualized adjustments after suppliers were ordered to meet savings of up to 36 percent.
Savings mandates were based on what each suppliers demands were during a nine-month period in 2013, Eastern Municipal General Manager Paul Jones said.
Large Inland suppliers including Perris-based Eastern Municipal Water District, Riverside Public Utilities and Rancho California Water District, based in Temecula, gave joint testimony in October and February asking the board to revise the regulation to address climate, housing and landscape differences between coastal and Inland communities, or Northern and Southern California.
We had many agencies throughout the state that felt that those regulations were inequitable, Jones said. We all worked together because we had common interests and felt our efforts werent being recognized.
Eastern Municipal and Western Municipal Water District of Riverside coordinated an effort among multiple agencies in Southern California and other parts of the state to develop recommendations for regulation adjustments to address those issues.
They submitted the proposals in joint letters before the boards reconsideration of the regulation in February, said Jones and Rancho California Water District General Manager Jeff Armstrong.
Armstrong applauded the water resources control board for heeding suppliers concerns in February while extending the emergency conservation regulation for another nine months. The board issued revised conservation standards for some suppliers Thursday.
I think they listened to water agencies across the state to formulate their modifications, Armstrong said.
Rancho California officials traveled to Sacramento and met with water resources control board staff and a board member in December to propose modifications that could be made in February to the emergency regulation to cover the next nine months beginning in March.
At Eastern Municipals invitation, state water board Chairwoman Felicia Marcus and board member Steve Moore toured the facility and its expanded groundwater desalination facilities.
District officials showed off their new facility that removes iron and manganese from brackish groundwater, enabling two or three wells to be reopened. On Thursday, Easterns water savings target was lowered from 28 to 20 percent.
Only one among the regions 21 largest suppliers was able to meet or exceed its nine-month water savings mandate, the state disclosed last Monday.
Riverside Public Utilities, which missed its 28 percent mandate by 7 percentage points, must now save 25 percent compared to 2013.
The utility, whose supply comes entirely from groundwater, has a June hearing in a pending lawsuit seeking a 4 percent savings mandate . Riverside uses no Northern California water imported through the state water project, said Deputy General Manager Kevin Milligan.
State officials believe Riversides water use or savings impact the states groundwater system.
An April 20 public workshop is now set. On May 18, the water control board will consider modifying the extended emergency regulation. Staff members are creating a framework for permanent water conservation regulations that will be unveiled May 3, board spokesman George Kostyrko said.
Contact the writer: 951-368-9444 or shurt@pressenterprise.com
PRINCETON, N.J. One of historys most important battles happened here on a field you can walk across in less than half the 45 or so minutes the battle lasted. If George Washingtons audacity on Jan. 3, 1777, had not reversed the patriots retreat and routed the advancing British, the American Revolution might have been extinguished.
Yet such is Americas neglect of some places that sustain its defining memories, the portion of the field over which Washingtons nation-saving charge passed is being bulldozed to make way for houses for faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study. To understand the gravity of this utterly unnecessary desecration, you must understand the astonishingly underestimated Battle of Princeton.
In December 1776, the Revolution was failing. Britain had sent to America 36,000 troops at that point, the largest European expeditionary force ever to crush the rebellion before a French intervention on Americas behalf. Washington had been driven from Brooklyn Heights, then from Manhattan, then out of New York. The nation barely existed as he retreated across New Jersey, into Pennsylvania.
But from there, on Christmas night, he crossed the Delaware River ice floes for a successful 45-minute (at most) attack on Britains Hessian mercenaries at Trenton. This was Washingtons first victory; he had not been at Lexington, Concord or Bunker Hill. Trenton would, however, have been merely an evanescent triumph, were it not for what happened 10 days later.
On Jan. 2, 1777, British Gen. Charles Cornwallis began marching 5,500 troops from Princeton to attack Washingtons slightly outnumbered forces at Trenton. Washington, leaving a few hundred soldiers to tend fires that tricked Cornwallis into thinking the patriot army was encamped, made a stealthy 14-mile night march to attack three British regiments remaining at Princeton. They collided on this field.
The most lethal weapons in this war were bayonets. The British had them. Few Americans did, and they beat a panicked retreat from the advancing steel. By his personal bravery, Washington reversed this and led a charge. An unusually tall man sitting on a large white horse, he was a clear target riding as close to British lines as first base is to home plate. Biographer Ron Chernow writes that, at Princeton, Washington was a warrior in the antique sense. The eighteenth-century battlefield was a compact space, its cramped contours defined by the short range of muskets and bayonet charges, giving generals a chance to inspire by their immediate presence.
When the redcoats ran, the British aura of invincibility and the strategy of securing territory and handing out pardons (Chernow) were shattered. And the drift of American opinion toward defeatism halted.
In his four-volume biography of Washington, James Thomas Flexner said: The British historian George Trevelyan was to write concerning Trenton: It may be doubted whether so small a number of men ever employed so short a space of time with greater and more lasting effects upon the history of the world. But such would not have been the result if Washington had not gone on to overwhelm Princeton.
This ground, on which patriots blood puddled on that 20-degree morning, has been scandalously neglected by New Jersey. Now it is being vandalized by the Institute for Advance Study, which has spurned a $4.5 million purchase offer more than $1 million above the appraised value from the invaluable Civil War Trust, which is expanding its preservation activities to Revolutionary War sites.
In todays academia there are many scholars against scholarship, including historians hostile to history postmodernists who think the past is merely a social construct reflecting the presents preoccupations, or power structures, or something. They partake of academias preference for a multicultural future of diluted, if not extinguished, nationhood, and they dislike commemorating history made by white men with guns. The IAS engaged a historian who wrote a report clotted with todays impenetrable academic patois. He says we should not fetishize space, and he drapes disparaging quotation marks around the words hallowed ground.
The nation owes much to the IAS, which supported Albert Einstein, physicist Robert Oppenheimer and the diplomat and historian George F. Kennan. It is especially disheartening that a distinguished institution of scholars is indifferent to preserving a historic site that can nourish national identity.
The battle to save this battlefield, one of the nations most significant and most neglected sites, is not yet lost. The government in todays Trenton, and in the city named for the man who won the 1777 battle, should assist the Civil War Trust.
In this image taken from a video, Haruka Weiser performs at ACMA Performing Arts Center in Beaverton, Ore. A homeless 17-year-old has been arrested Friday in the killing of the University of Texas dance major whose body was recovered in the heart of the bustling campus Ai unnerving one of the country's best-known schools. (AP Photo)
LatAm oil countries soft to world oil producers in prop up prices
Reuters/Guillermo Granja
Delegations from Latin American oil exporters from Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Venezuela meet at the UNASUR headquarters in Quito, April 8, 2016.
QUITO
Petroleumworld.com 04 11 2016
Latin America's main oil exporters on Friday called on both OPEC and non-OPEC nations to take action to stabilize oil markets, in a timid statement that did not explicitly back an output freeze or offer more aggressive proposals to shore up slumping prices.
Delegations from Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Venezuela met in Quito in the run-up to a meeting in Doha on April 17 that oil exporters hope will help reduce a supply glut that has driven global oil prices down by around 60 percent since mid-2014.
The countries in a statement agreed to "call on OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers ... to take necessary actions to stabilize the world petroleum market to improve prices for the benefit of producer and consumer nations."
They also agreed to create a regional dialogue mechanism on oil and gas reserves, production, demand and inventories.
The meeting was the first significant sign that non-OPEC producers Colombia and Mexico may be involved in an effort to bolster prices.
However, Mexico said it was only participating as an "observer" to share information and its energy ministry pointed out that the country's crude output had already declined by more than a million barrels per day in the last 12 years.
Mexican officials have said they cannot freeze or cut output in any kind of coordinated strategy to support prices. Mexico's oil output has been falling for over a decade due to its ageing fields and under-investment.
Venezuela's Oil Minister Eulogio Del Pino said 18 countries had confirmed they would be at the Doha meeting, with two or three others committing verbally.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Friday he hoped producers will agree in Doha to freeze output.
Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Qatar agreed in February to freeze production at January levels, but said at the time the deal was contingent on other producers joining in.
Pacific E&P near takeover deal; Shareholders to block deal
Pacific Exploration & Production ( OTCPK:PEGFF +3.4% ) co-chairmen Serafino Iacono and Miguel de la Campa are close to clinching a deal to take over the company after outbidding rivals, Bloomberg reports.
BOGOTA
Petroleumworld.com 04 11 2016
Shareholders of troubled Canadian-Colombian oil firm Pacific Exploration & Production Corp. have asked Colombia's markets regulator to block a possible buyout deal they say favors management over investors, heating up the battle over the struggling company's assets.
Led by O'Hara Administration Co., which owns a 20% stake in Pacific, the shareholder group filed a formal complaint with the regulator, alleging that an offer by private-equity fund Catalyst Capital Group in Toronto benefits Pacific's co-chairmen but could leave shareholders with nothing, according to two people familiar with the talks.
Pacific, saddled with debt and facing a cash crunch amid the fall in oil prices, has seen its market capitalization fall from a peak of $8 billion in 2012 to around $500 million today. Since January, it has twice had to waive bond payments and has seen its share price collapse 40%, to 0.91 Canadian cents (70 U.S. cents) on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Friday.
In addition to Catalyst, Pacific has received offers from Mexican conglomerate Alfa SAB and U.S. energy investment firm EIG.
An advisory committee appointed by Pacific's management to review the offers will present its recommendations Sunday and is expected to back the Catalyst bid, the people familiar with the talks said. If the board votes to accept, the deal must then be approved by holders of two-thirds of the company's debt.
The protesting shareholder group, which combined owns 35% of the company, claims the advisory committee is stacked with people acting in the interests of Pacific's co-chairmen Serafino Iacono and Miguel de la Campa. Shareholders point to conflicts of interest between the committee and management, such as Messrs Iacono's and de la Campa's directorships at several Colombian companies alongside two out of the three committee members, say two people familiar with the discussions.
Spokesmen for Pacific Energy, Alfa and EIG declined to comment. A spokesman for Catalyst didn't immediately respond to a request.
Most of Pacific's assets are in Colombia. Its precarious financial position represents a stark change of fortune for a firm that came to symbolize Colombia's economic transformation of the past decade. It was founded by three Venezuelan and Italian oil and mining executives in 2003, who managed to extract heavy oil from Colombia's eastern Rubiales field, earning hundreds of millions of dollars a year. By the early 2010s, Pacific had become Colombia's second-largest company by revenue. But the company later accumulated massive debt and was hit by the sharp drop in oil prices, which spent all of last year trading below $65 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
AstraZeneca and Eli Lillys experimental Alzheimers disease drug AZD3293 has been given the green light to progress into late-stage testing, after a safety analysis by an independent data monitoring committee.
The decision means that the closely-watched drug, an oral beta secretase cleaving enzyme (BACE) inhibitor, can continue seamlessly into the Phase III section of the ongoing Phase II/III AMARANTH trial.
This is an important and meaningful step forward on the path to better understand the Alzheimers puzzle, noted Phyllis Ferrell, vice president and global development leader for Alzheimers disease at Lilly.
BACE is an enzyme associated with the development of beta-amyloid, and its inhibition is expected to eventually slow progression of the disease.
In Phase I trials, AZD3293, also known as LY3314814, reduced levels of amyloid-beta in the cerebro-spinal fluid of Alzheimers patients and healthy volunteers, raising hopes that it might prove to be an effective new treatment target.
AZ and Lilly also announced the planned start of a new Phase III trial for AZD3293, named DAYBREAK, in the third quarter, to study its safety and efficacy in people with mild Alzheimers dementia.
The companies have been collaborating on the drugs development since 2014. Under the terms of their agreement, Lilly leads clinical development, working with AZ researchers, while the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker will be responsible for manufacturing.
Both groups have joint responsibility for commercialisation and will share all future costs equally for development and commercialisation, as well as net global revenues post-launch.
While the Fargo SWAT team didnt use the tactic, the consideration of encouraging Marcus Schumacher to kill himself during a Feb. 10 standoff was wrong. The responsibility of officers is to try to end situations without the loss of life.
The officers, without a doubt, were in a deadly confrontation. One officer, Jason Moszer, already had been killed and Schumacher continued to fire at the police and neighbors homes. Police were worried about the residents safety and their own. Talks with Schumacher werent going well and the suggestion was made to encourage Schumacher to shoot himself. SWAT team commander Lt. Bill Ahlfeldt had told officers to shoot Schumacher if they had a clear shot.
Ahlfeldt gave officers the approval to encourage suicide after conferring with Lt. Chris Helmick and with Deputy Chief Ross Renner. Fortunately, the tactic was never used. We say fortunately because the tactic goes against how police are trained to act. They are taught how to calm situations and how to get people to surrender weapons. Officers are expected to fire only when their lives or other lives are in danger.
Carole Lieberman, a forensic psychiatrist in Beverly Hills, Calif., told the Forum News Service shes never heard of such a tactic. Theres really no excuse for agreeing to encourage him to kill himself, she said. Its extremely unethical.
We agree. At the same time, we realize the officers were in incredibly dangerous circumstances. They were in grief over losing an officer and worried over someone else getting hurt. It doesnt excuse considering such an unorthodox tactic. Another disturbing aspect of the case is that Police Chief David Todd didnt know the tactic was suggested until the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation released documents on the shooting. Ahlfeldt mentioned the discussion to the bureau, but he had never talked to Todd about it.
Fargo needs to include a discussion of the ethics of the suicide tactic in its training. It needs to stress its an inappropriate tactic and shouldnt be used. Other police departments in the state and across the nation should do the same.
Its a shame the otherwise heroic actions by the Fargo officers has been marred by the suicide discussion. Its a learning experience prompted by a terrible confrontation. We shouldnt forget how bravely the officers performed and we shouldnt forget this lesson.
Day One: Lyell to Ghost Lake
Day Two: Ghost Lake to Stern Valley
Day Three: Stern Valley to Seddonville
There is no shortage of riding in the South Island of New Zealand, from the trail riding of the North in Nelson to the Park in the South of Skyline Bike Park in Queenstown, you've got a lot to choose from! However, there is also 'big mountain' riding to be found and wanting to get a taste of some wilderness, myself, German riders, Max and Fabio, along with NZ native and fellow Peak Leaders graduate, Morgan Walker drafted up a plan to sample the 'Old Ghost Road'.Found in the North Coast corner of New Zealand's South Island, the 'Old Ghost Road' is the remnants of an 85km old gold miner's trail that runs from the 'old dray road' at Lyell in the South to the Mokihinui River in the North. From an idea in 2007, this gradually became a reality in 2013, thanks to the hours of work put in by volunteers with support from the New Zealand Cycle Trail project. It now runs as a multi-use trail, traversing the same route through the satellite towns that sprung up to support the developing gold industry, across the same diverse terrain that the miners took back in the 1870s.Tackling this trail does take quite a bit of preparation, as making the 85km trip takes you into New Zealand's wilderness means packing for three days worth of food, clothes, and bike related spares that come with unsupported riding. However, thanks to Morgan at Mot Lodge, we were given the perfect setting to assemble our gear and get the lowdown of what to expect on the trail. After counting calories and making the final checks, we packed our bags and loaded up the truck in preparation for a long day, with an early start and drive to Lyell.Waking up bright an early (but thanks to DST not quite as early) we made the drive via National route 65 from Motueka to the car park at Lyell, after the obligatory coffee/tea stop in Murchison. The first day of any trip can be difficult, but this one was made that bit harder adjusting to riding with 20kg packs and making up 1400m of climbing. But getting our packs on and our heads down, we began the grind up. After a short push through the steep and rocky 'Big Slips' (definitely a no stop zone), we arrived at our first stop on Lyell Saddle.There is evidence on the trailside everywhere of the once rich gold trade that established this route. Rusted wheels, buckets, and tools, along with information boards giving you an insight into satellite towns that sprung up to support those that used it, the road has got a rich history to it. It's difficult to think people used to make this trip without all the lightweight and sophisticated equipment we now take for granted!Levelling out and making good progress, we stopped for lunch at Lyell Saddle hut. Part of what makes this trip feel less like a wilderness trek and more like a luxurious getaway are the 'hut settlements' found at intervals throughout the journey, all of which pack a woodburning stove, running water and mattresses. Reaching our first clearing, we got a taste of what to expect, with great views of the forest under the Lyell range. Smashing a sandwich lunch, we went back into the bush for the grind, with another 600m of vertical to get done.Coming out onto the alpine, we got another reward from all the climbing, an amazing 360-degree vista over Bald Hill and the Lyell Range. Seemingly endless views also came with the first difficult section of trail across to Ghost Lake. Cut into the cliffside, the trail runs between a long drop down to the valley floor one side and a cliff face on the other. At some points only a metre of so wide this definitely justifies the grade four difficulty given to the trail! But in combination with the views and a late afternoon golden hour it just added to the thrill of the day, and we arrived at our stop for the night buzzing.Ghost Lake is one of the highest set of huts on the trail, but no less luxurious. With a bench equipped deck overlooking the valley, there wasn't much else to do than admire the view with a beer whilst the sun set, before heading inside and get a fire going, swapping stories with our fellow campers for the night. It's easy to forget with these home comforts how far removed you are in New Zealand's rugged and wild west coast and really makes you appreciate just how beautiful this part of the world is.Waking to an amazing cloud inversion, there was no time to lay about in bed. Since we didn't have long to make that day, decided to pedal back and admire the trail from Bald Hill to rocky tor under the bluebird sky and cloud inversion in pretty much every direction! Feeling more confident with the trail having ridden it before, we gave ourselves more of a chance to enjoy it. After making a final stop at Ghost Lake for lunch, we headed for our next stop at Stern Valley.The trail drops sharply down from Ghost Lake, with 800m of descent following steep switchbacks, made even more challenging with packs. The long technical climb (admittedly with lots of pushing) takes you up on a ridge, whilst getting distracted again thanks to a near 360-degree view and the diverse terrain you pass through. Here we reached the 'Skyline Steps', which pretty much speak for themselves! No chance of riding down these, taking you down another 60m of elevation, we were then rewarded with a long section of flowy singletrack down to the Stern Valley huts.With just enough time for a quick pedal to 'The Boneyard' and cool off in the river before the sun went in, lots of elevation both up and down meant an early night for all of us. Again still blessed with unreal skies to fall asleep under.Having had a middle day, we were left with a bit more distance to cover for the final pedal to Seddonville. Thankfully we got most of this climbing done in the morning, heading up through an eerily misty boulder strewn Boneyard. What really strikes you throughout this trail is the diversity of the terrain you pass through. Rich beech forest, high rocky alpine, alpine bush, boulder fields and steep rocky traverses next to the Mokihiuni River, this is a trail that keeps on giving. You never are given anything boring to look at or ride through, which is more than enough to keep you distracted on the long climbs up.After making it through the no stop zones of the boneyard, we got another prime singletrack descent to Goat Creek, getting to the flatter section alongside the river where the KM's came quickly passing through thick moss covered trees and streams. Crossing the suspension bridge and getting past Specimen Point huts, it was onto more steep traverses with a long drop down to the river, definitely another place to not lose a front wheel.Getting into the end we were all fully buzzing and equally hungry. The Seddonville Hotel is an obligatory stop for Old Ghost trippers and we were ready to sit down with a cold beer, burger and have a chat about the best bits of the trip. Reading through the visitors book, there was definitely a recurring theme of 'epic' and I can't help but agree that this trail fully deserves this title.For more info on the trail and booking accommodation in the huts, check out the Old Ghost Road website . If you do ride the trail please donate to the Old Ghost road fund to keep the good times rolling!Big thanks to Morgan and Mot Lodge for their hospitality, guidance and use of the killer Yeti SB5c rental bikes throughout the trip! After training and working as a bike park guide in Whistler with Peak Leaders, Morgan Walker now works as part of the Mot Lodge near Nelson, a Bed and Breakfast set in the Motueka Valley within the Tasman region of the South Island. Mot Lodge has established a luxury bed and breakfast with guided mountain bike tours. For more info on staying at the Lodge, check out their website Facebook page and Instagram John Inman,Peak Leaders: Ski, Snowboard & Mountain Bike Instructor Courses & Camps www.peakleaders.com | Tel: +44 (0) 1337 860 079Join us on Facebook | Follow us on Twitter @PeakLeaders | Add us on Instagram @PeakLeadersDirt
I predicted the purchase of M5 by ShoreTel back in 2012 could get Vonage to consider going after the business space and a year later they purchased Vocalocity and a suite of companies to enable them to not only target the small business market but all the way up to the largest of the large companies. In an exclusive interview with Clark Peterson, President of Vonage Business Solutions, I got to learn a great deal about what is happening at the company.
Through three channel-based companies they purchased, they now 600,000 business seats as compared to 1.9 million on the residential side. Clark touted the fact that his company has better financial stability than most of the others in the space. I am sure some might disagree but regardless, the Vonage name has a tremendous legacy associated with it The company not only help launched the consumer VoIP space, its aggressive marketing helped a multibillion dollar IP communications market come to life. Back in 2003 when the fortunes of the communication market werent looking that good, Vonage ads showed there was a company which believed they could sell an OTT service to consumers bypassing telcos. Immediately, the cable companies and CSPs responded by investing in competitive services and IP communications in general.
Frankly Im surprised it took the company this long but they had the resources to not only enter the market but quickly dominate it.
They have 212 POPs and can deliver service in a proprietary fashion for SMBs and for the enterprise they have Broadsoft as well as the Transera contact center solution I recently described. In addition, they can provide LiveOps or InContact solutions. They can also provide IaaS, virtual desktops, hosted MS Exchange and hosted Skype for Business.
A big differentiator is SmartWAN real-time packet optimization which is similar to those provided by standalone SD-WAN companies such as CloudGenix. He explained customers are trading in their T1s for a few consumer broadband services and in the process they get better quality as well as auto-failover. Their cloud-level SmartWAN solution includes a customer premise device (CPE) which allows Vonage to track MOS scores as well as jitter.
What may surprise you is the fact they have customers with tens of thousands of seats. If you have strong memories of Vonage of the home phone company, you realize they have really grown up.
Some of their differentiators are QoS everywhere over SmartWAN as well as MPLS. They also have their proprietary Zeus service delivery solution which allows you to track new installs, commissions, moves/ads/changes and more from various devices. He likens it to a SFA solution coupled with MS Project. Vonage President Alan Masarek told our very own Erik Linask about this in September of last year.
There is also tight integration with Google For Work, Office 365 and Salesforce allowing single-sign-on support.
In one case, a customers had 21 VARs and 19 phone vendors supporting their disparate solutions and Vonage was able to wrap it all up into a single solution with one throat to choke a term vendors typically dont like but is quite descriptive. The best part may be there was no capital outlay to make all of this happen and there are economies of scale not realized with disparate solutions.
If you follow the company, you know you also get a great app it has presence, chat and a conference bridge. I got a good demo of how it works. The future? Expect to see them grow in various vertical spaces as well as in Asia and Europe.
Vonage has really grown up. They were late the business space but are now full speed ahead becoming a major global phone company.
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By Chris Kahn
(Reuters) A third of Republican voters who support Donald Trump could turn their backs on their party in Novembers presidential election if he is denied the nomination in a contested convention, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The results are bad news for Trumps rivals as well as party elites opposed to the real estate billionaire, suggesting that an alternative Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 presidential race would have a tougher road against the Democrats.
If its a close election, this is devastating news for the Republicans, said Donald Green, an expert on election turnout at Columbia University.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted March 30 to April 8 asked Trumps Republican supporters two questions: if Trump wins the most delegates in the primaries but loses the nomination, what would they do on Election Day, and how would it impact their relationship with the Republican Party?
Sixty-six percent said they would vote for the candidate who eventually wins the nomination, while the remaining third were split between a number of alternatives such as not voting, supporting a third-party candidate, and switching parties and voting for the Democratic nominee.
Meanwhile, 58 percent said they would remain with the Republican Party. Another 16 percent said they would leave it, and 26 percent said they did not know what they would do with their registration. The online poll of 468 Republican Trump supporters has a credibility interval of 5.3 percentage points.
(Click here for the poll results: http://tmsnrt.rs/25PRLZe )
Trump has topped the national polls throughout most of the race for the Republican nomination, and has won more delegates than any other Republican so far. A Reuters/Ipsos online poll from April 4-8 showed that 42 percent of Republicans support Trump, compared with 32 percent for U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and 20 percent for Ohio Governor John Kasich. [L2N17B1J0]
Cruz and Kasich have both said their paths to victory rely on winning at least enough votes to block an outright win for Trump and force a decision at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
ILL BE FED UP
But Trump, whose supporters have remained loyal even as he rankled women, Hispanics, Muslims, veterans and others with his fiery rhetoric on the campaign trail, predicted last month there would be riots outside the convention if he was blocked.
If they broker him out, Ill be fed up with the Republicans, said Chuck Thompson, 66, a Trump supporter from Concord, North Carolina, who took the poll.
Thompson, a lifelong Republican, said he admires Trumps independence from big campaign donors and takes that as a sign that the front-runner will be able to think for himself if he were to become president.
If Trump loses the nomination, Thompson said he would quit the party. The people want Donald Trump. If they (Republicans) cant deal with that, I dont need them, he said.
Green said the departure of even a small number of Republicans would make it tough for the party to prevent the Democrats from winning the White House, especially if the election is again decided by razor-thin margins in a handful of battleground states.
In 2012, President Barack Obama won Florida by less than 1 percentage point and Ohio and Virginia by less than 4 percentage points. The Republicans dont really have any margin of error, Green said.
Trump and Cruz both trail Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton among likely general election voters in a hypothetical general election matchup, but not by much, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos polls.
Generally, a convention battle is a bad sign for the health of a political party, said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of the book, Primary Politics: How Presidential Candidates Have Shaped the Modern Nominating System.
When a party gets to a point when it has a contested convention, it almost always hurts them, Kamarck said. Its a confirmation of some really deep fissures within the party that were unable to be dealt with during the primary season.
Trump supporter Elizabeth Oerther, 40, of Louisville, Kentucky, said she would switch parties and vote for the Democratic nominee if the Republicans denied Trump the nomination.
If you dont give it to him, Im going to vote against them, said Oerther, who took the poll. They want to take away the choice of the people. Thats wrong.
(Reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Bill Trott)
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Bernie Sanders won the popular vote in Wyoming, but Hillary Clinton performed better than expected and came out of the caucus tied with Sen. Sanders with the states pledged delegates.
In a statement Clinton campaign manager Robbie Mook said, We congratulate Senator Sanders on a spirited campaign in Wyoming. Outperforming expectations, Hillary Clinton tied in pledged delegates today and now leads Senator Sanders by approximately 220 pledged delegates nationwide. Thanks to the help of thousands of volunteers, Hillary is winning the popular vote by almost 2.4 million and has a nearly insurmountable lead in pledged delegates that will become harder and harder to overcome after each contest. We are grateful to our supporters who know that Hillary Clinton would be the best candidate to break down the barriers that hold Americans back.
Bernie Sanders did continue his dominance of the Western caucus states, but Hillary Clinton performed much better than anyone expected. It was anticipated that Sanders would win by 30 or more points. Instead, Clinton won the largest county in the state outright and lost statewide by 12 points. Twelve points is still a large margin, but it was less than half of what Sen. Sanders has won other caucus states by.
The pledged delegates tie means that the Sanders campaign lost a prime opportunity to make up a few delegates on Clinton. Former Sec. of State Clinton came into the caucus with commitments from four of the states superdelegates, so the split of Wyomings 18 delegates will likely be 11-7 for Hillary Clinton.
Wyoming illustrates why erasing Clintons delegate lead may be a nearly impossible task. Bernie Sanders won another battle on Saturday but continued to lose the war for the Democratic nomination. Unless something unexpected and dramatic happens, Hillary Clinton is favored to do well in both of the upcoming contests in New York and Pennsylvania.
Hillary Clinton is firmly in control and on pace to win the Democratic nomination. Momentum is difficult to measure, and can shift in an instant. After performing better in Wyoming than anyone expected, both Clinton and Sanders can make an argument for momentum being in their corner.
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By James Oliphant and Alana Wise
WASHINGTON (Reuters) U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will speak at an event in the Vatican next week, likely broadening his appeal to Catholic voters ahead of crucial nominating contests in a series of Northeastern states.
Like Pope Francis, Sanders has made economic inequality and the plight of the working class a central tenet of his message. Sanders April 15 visit to Vatican City, where he will give an economic address at a conference, will come just days before Democrats in New York vote in their state primary.
The trip may help the U.S. senator amplify the anti-corporate line of attack he has employed against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton as he tries to keep his insurgent campaign for the Nov. 8 presidential election alive.
Sanders, who would be the first Jewish U.S. president if elected, described himself on MSNBC as a big, big fan of the pope, who leads the worlds 1.2 billion Catholics. Speaking to reporters in New York later, Sanders said he hoped to meet with Francis.
The popes schedule is determined by the Vatican but I would certainly be enthusiastic about that, said Sanders, 74, the Brooklyn-born son of Polish-Jewish immigrants.
A meeting with the Argentine pontiff could provide an electoral boost to Sanders, who has trailed former Secretary of State Clinton in support among Americas Catholic Democrats.
Pope Francis has criticized the make money at all cost capitalist mentality and called for more compassion for the poor, said Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist in Washington. Thats exactly the way, Bernie Sanders wants to define his campaign against Clinton.
Clinton has scored victories over Sanders in Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Texas, all of which are more than one-quarter Catholic.
A survey by the Pew Research Center earlier this year found that while almost 70 percent of Catholic Democrats thought Clinton would make a good president, just 46 percent thought Sanders would be one.
This is a great play for Sanders because it ties directly his messaging related to income equality, it puts him on the world stage as a leader, and it does it with an institution and leader important to a key voting bloc in a state where every vote is going to count heading into the primary, said Virginia-based Democratic strategist Bud Jackson.
Sanders was invited to speak at the Vatican event by the Vatican, a senior papal official said, denying a report that Sanders had invited himself.
I deny that. It was not that way, Monsignor Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo told Reuters. Sorondo, a close aide to Pope Francis, is chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, which is hosting the event.
SANDERS, BILL CLINTON BACK OFF
Late April brings nominating contests in Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, all states with large populations of Catholic voters.
Sanders victory earlier this week over Clinton in the Wisconsin primary marked his sixth win in the past seven contests, sparking renewed talk of Clintons political vulnerability despite her substantial delegate lead.
Sanders this week said Clinton, who is also a former first lady and former U.S. senator, was not qualified to be president.
After heavy criticism from Clintons campaign and other Democrats, he backed off Friday morning in an interview on NBCs Today.
On her worst day, she would be an infinitely better president than either of the Republican candidates, he said, referring to New York developer Donald Trump and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.
Clinton has been under fire from progressives since her campaign began. On Thursday, her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had a testy exchange at a campaign rally in Philadelphia with protestors from the Black Lives Matter movement over the effects of an anti-crime bill passed during his presidency.
At one point, Bill Clinton accused the movement of defending the people who kill the lives you say matter.
On Friday, he seemed regretful.
I rather vigorously defended my wife, as I am wont to do, and I realized, finally, I was talking past her (the protestor) the same way she was talking past me, Clinton said at an event in Erie, Pennsylvania. We have got to stop that in this country. Weve got to listen to each other again.
In the Republican race, Trump extended his lead nationally over Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The national online poll showed that 42 percent of Republicans support Trump, compared with 32 percent for Cruz and 20 percent for Kasich.
(Additional reporting by Megan Cassella and Doina Chiacu in Washington and Philip Pullella in Vatican City; Editing by Bill Trott and Alistair Bell)
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Hillary Clinton expressed confidence that she will have the delegates needed, and that there will not be a contested Democratic convention in Philadelphia.
Video:
Transcript via CNNs State Of The Union:
TAPPER: Weaver also told an ABC podcast that there will quote certainly be a contested convention if neither of you gets the magic number with pledged delegates. Do you think it would be a mistake for Senator Sanders to contest the nomination at the convention if youre leading in the popular vote and leading in pledged delegates after the California primary? H. CLINTON: Well, I think that we should look at where we are. Right now, I am leading him with about 2.5 million votes in the popular vote. Im leading him in pledged delegates with a larger margin than then-Senator Obama ever had over me. I feel good about the upcoming contests, and I expect to be the nominee. And I will hope to have a unified Democratic Party, so that we can turn our attention to the Republican nominee. Either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz would be a terrible choice for America. So, we need to run a unified Democratic Party campaign to bring as many people on our side as possible. And I have been putting together a broad, inclusive coalition, and I think I will be able to continue to do that. TAPPER: Are you preparing for the scenario where you where neither of you enter the convention with the exact number of pledged delegates you need, and there might be something of a floor fight or a contested convention? Are you getting ready for that just in case? H. CLINTON: No, I intend to have the number of delegates that are required to be nominated.
The Sanders campaign is looking for a rationale and a path to victory in the face of a primary calendar and delegate math that is not working in their favor. Unless Bernie Sanders can overtake Hillary Clinton in pledged delegates, the superdelegates are not going to flip to Bernie Sanders. It is likely that former Sec. of State Clinton will reach the number of total delegates needed to clinch the nomination.
If Clinton leads Sanders in both the popular vote and pledged delegates, Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. Should Clinton win both New York and Pennsylvania, it will pretty much make it impossible for Bernie Sanders to have any path to the nomination. Hillary Clinton is firmly in control of her own destiny.
It is extremely unlikely that the Democratic Party will have anything close to a contested convention.
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Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders appeared on four of the five Sundays shows, and even though the programs were dominated by talk about the Democratic primary, Sanders was still able to deliver a reality check to the corporate media by talking about a few often ignored issues.
Sanders on Meet The Press:
On NBCs Meet The Press, Sen. Sanders argued that Hillary Clintons support for trade agreements is bad for working families, Well, when you vote for virtually every trade agreement that has cost the workers of this country millions of jobs, when you support and continue to support fracking, despite the crisis that we have in terms of clean water, and essentially, when you have a super PAC that is raising tens of millions of dollars from every special interest out there, including 15 million from Wall Street, the American people do not believe that that is the kind of president that we need to make the changes in America to protect the working families of this country.
Sanders on ABCs This Week:
ABC Breaking News | Latest News Videos
On ABCs This Week, Sanders discussed the economic struggles of those who are living on Social Security, Let me go back to Social Security. There are millions of disabled veterans and seniors who are trying to make it on 11,000 or 12,000 a year Social Security and they cant. The Republicans in many instances want to cut Social Security, what I want to do is expand it. And what I said yesterday is we have legislation and it has good support that says you lift the cap on taxable income. Right now, somebody makes millions, somebody makes $118,000, they pay the same amount into it. If you lift the cap starting at $250,000 and above $250,000 and above we can improve benefits for seniors earning $16,000 a year or less by $1,300 a year. Not insignificant. And extend the life of social security for 58 years. That is my view.
Sanders on CNN State Of The Union:
Sanders took on multinational corporations who avoid paying taxes in the US, It wasnt just that you know, it was talking about the greed of corporate America, including General Electric. And what I was saying, which is absolutely true, is, you have a large multinational corporation that was in a sense born and raised right here in the United States, I think in Schenectady, in New York, as a matter of fact. And here is a corporation that has shut down plants all over this country, moved to countries where they could find the cheapest possible labor. In fact, the guy who was head of General Electric before Jeff Immelt, he basically said that, you know, hed like to see his manufacturing plants on a barge, so they could move to the cheapest labor. They have, in a given year, paid nothing in federal income taxes. You know, they are part of lobbying efforts in Washington to protect the interests of the wealthy.
To hear any presidential candidate talk about people who are struggling to survive while big corporations avoid paying their fair share of taxes is always welcome, but it is especially refreshing to hear these subjects being discussed on the most corporate-driven public affairs programs on television.
The Sanders interviews were mostly consumed with 2016 election talk, but a few moments of issue discussion snuck into each one. Sen. Sanders does have a very important message to deliver to the country, which is why he and his campaign shouldnt get bogged down in the back and forth that can quickly consume nominating contests.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is finally getting a national platform for his message about getting the special interests out of American politics. Heres hoping that he can use the media attention that he is getting to keep these vital issues in the national spotlight.
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At a rally in Rochester, NY, Donald Trump compared himself to Bernie Sanders and complained that he and Sen. Sanders are both being robbed of their respective parties presidential nominations.
Video of Trump:
https://youtu.be/ekKD8n9b95Y?t=20m55s
At a rally in Rochester, NY, Trump said:
Think of this. So I watch Bernie, he wins. He wins. He keeps winning, winning. And then I see, hes got no chance. They always say hes got no chance. Why doesnt he have a chance? Because the system is corrupt. And its worse on the Republican side because Im up millions and millions of votes on Cruz. Millions. Now I dont mean like Im up by two votes. Im up by millions and millions of votes. Im up by hundreds and hundreds of delegates. I go to Louisiana. I win Louisiana, and I say isnt that beautiful. I love the people. I send them a note saying thank you very much. I love you, Louisiana. Then I found out that I get less delegates than Cruz because of some nonsense going on. No, Im telling you. And I say this to the RNC. I say it to the Republican Party. Youre going to have a big problem folks because there are people they dont like whats going on. They dont like whats going on. I mean I win the state or Arizona, and Cruz wins Utah, which is far less in terms of the number of delegates. And I see Cruz; I won Utah. He doesnt talk about the fact that he got killing in Arizona by a landslide. Weve got a corrupt system, and its not right. Were supposed to be a democracy. Were supposed to be you vote and vote means something, and weve got to do something about it. . What theyre doing, and whether its me, or whether its Bernie Sanders, when I look at it, and I see all of these victories that I have and all of these victories that hes got, and then you look at the establishment, and I want to tell you, its a corrupt deal going on in this country, and its not good. Its not fair to you people.
Trumps comparison of himself to Bernie Sanders is bogus. The two parties have different primary systems. Bernie Sanders is behind because he lost too many states by too big of a margin. If Sanders had won Texas instead of Alaska, the Democratic primary would be in a completely different place. Due to the proportional allocation of delegates, if Sanders had lost Texas, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina by half as much as he did, he would be in a much better position in the delegate race today. The Sanders campaign is trailing because they have been blown out in some very big delegate states.
Bernie Sanders hasnt been robbed. If Sanders ran better in several states, even in defeat, he would have many more delegates. If Sanders were leading the delegate race, he would be more attractive to superdelegates. The difference between Sanders and Trump is that Bernie Sanders could still win.
Trump is losing because Republicans really are trying to take the nomination away from him. Donald Trump is leading the Republican field, but he made the mistake of assuming that winning the popular vote equals winning the nomination. Donald Trump didnt know the rules and didnt properly staff his campaign.
Donald Trump is throwing fits, making threats, and inaccurately attaching himself to Bernie Sanders. Instead of whining, Trump should be opening his checkbook and hiring a big staff to fight for delegates. Trumps threat was clear. If the Republican Party tries to take the nomination away from him, he is going to burn the party to the ground.
Trump is running of threat cards to play against the RNC, and his fit in Rochester was the strongest indication yet that he has no idea how to right his sinking campaign.
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President Obama left Republicans whimpering in the corner after an interview where he conquered Fox News.
Video of Obama on Fox News Sunday:
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
Obama romped through the Fox News Sunday interview like a hot knife through butter.
The President tore apart the Republican rationale for obstructing his Supreme Court nominee:
WALLACE: Have you made a commitment to Garland that youre going to stick by him through the end of your term? Or perhaps, lets say Hillary Clinton is the newly elected president, would you pull him and let her make the pick? OBAMA: As more senators meet with him, I think they will recognize the qualities of this individual. What I think we cant have is a situation in which the Republican Senate simply says, Because its a Democratic president, we are not going to do our job, have hearings, and have a vote. WALLACE: But OBAMA: Because if that happens, Chris, then it is almost impossible to expect that the Democrats lets say a Republican president won that the Democrats wouldnt say the exact same thing. Theyll say, Lets wait for four years, and well take our chances on the next president.
Obama shot down and destroyed the GOPs Hillary Clinton email conspiracy theory, and quickly tamed the Fox News paper tiger.
After part one of the interview aired, Fox News Sunday went to Karl Rove, who tried his whimpering best to revive numerous bogus Republican Obama scandals, He should have stepped away from this and not commented on it. But he did. He was offering the first defense of Hillary Clinton. It was unintentional, and it really wasnt important information, because as you know, there is classified and then will is classified. It was really inappropriate I think for the chief executive of the United States to comment on an ongoing FBI investigation. Secondly, I dont feel particularly comforted by his follow-up which was, of courses, its not going to be political because thats not how the Justice Department operates. Well, the American people have a great deal of concern about how this particular administrations Justice Department operates. After all, Lois Lerner is out there free and clear after clearly abusing her powers at the IRS. And this administration started off by dropping the investigation and charges that had been filed against the Black Panther Party which was on videotape harassing voters at the polls in Philadelphia in 2008 and was all political.
Rove tried to tie together the bogus IRS scandal, the more bogus Black Panther Party claim, and the Hillary Clinton email scandal. Obama tore through a Fox News interview like he was talking to himself in the mirror and all Karl Rove could answer with is debunked Republican conspiracies.
The Obama/Fox News Sunday interview revealed the toothless nature of conservative media. Fox News talked a big game about interviewing the President, but when they got the opportunity, the network never stood a chance against Obama.
Yes. I vote for candidates who have lawmaking experience.
Yes. I'm voting for newer or first-time candidates.
No. I vote based on candidates' stances on issues.
No. I vote based based on political affiliation.
Experience matters, but other factors are just as important.
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Chad is voting in a presidential election on Sunday at which incumbent Idriss Deby is running for a fifth term in office.
I call on Chadians to vote in calm and serenity. Our country is starting from a long way back but the future looks bright. I ask all politicians to respect the verdict of the ballot box, Mr. Deby told journalists as he voted.
Witnesses said thousands of voters cast their ballots at polling stations in the capital in the first election the Central African country has held using biometric data.
We came to vote for the president to guarantee peace in our country. Around us in the neighbouring countries there are too many problems, said civil servant Fatima Zara as she lined up to vote.
The president, who led a rebellion to power in 1990, is favourite to defeat 13 challengers including opposition leader Saleh Kebzabo who argues that Chad needs change.
Chads constitution allows Deby to run but he has pledged to reintroduce term limits which were abolished by his government in 2004.
Debys political advantages after decades in power include effective control of state media as well as the institutions of state and local administrations.
The economy of the landlocked country relies largely on oil production and a slump in global prices has hit government revenue.
One challenge facing the next government will be to diversify an economy in which many live in poverty.
I got up early to come and vote because we want change, said Mathieu Madjitulngar, an unemployed man queuing at a polling station in a suburb of the capital.
(Reuters/NAN)
The verbal fireworks between civil society groups and the embattled Senate President, Bukola Saraki, continued on Sunday with the Transition Monitoring Group releasing yet another scathing statement urging Nigerians to remain steadfast in their quest to kick the top lawmaker out of office.
The TMG said it has continued to watch with keen interest as the Senate President reacts to its previous calls for him to step down amid corruption scandals.
In a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES by its chairman, Ibrahim Zikirullahi, on Sunday, TMG said Mr. Sarakis strategy to wait out the public outrage over his alleged false assets declaration trial as well as the new revelations about his ties to offshore businesses in tax havens as contained in the Panama Papers has backfired.
In the last 48 hours, the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) has observed closely as heavily tainted Senate President, Bukola Saraki struggles to rationalize his decision to sit-tight in the face of damning revelations from his trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal and the leaked Panama Papers.
Like a drowning man, Saraki is advertising his willingness to hold on to any straw. Since TMG released its widely circulated statement calling on him to immediately step down on account of damaging effects of his trial on the Senate as an institution, Saraki has cut a pathetic figure.
His vile calculations that the Nigerian people would soon forget about the revelations, and move on, have boomeranged, Mr. Zikirullahi said.
Following the commencement of his trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal and the PREMIUM TIMES investigations that exposed him as one of the most prominent clients of Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers leak, calls for Mr. Sarakis resignation have been spearheaded by the Transition Monitoring Group, TMG, Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, CACOL, Muslim Rights Council, MURIC, and other Nigerians.
A defiant Mr. Saraki said in a statement on Saturday that all efforts to stampede him out of office are being orchestrated by his political adversaries, vowing to continue the battle until his case is dispensed by the court of law.
They believe that the on-going trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal provides them the opportunity to stampede Dr. Saraki out of office so that their defeated objective of getting their lackey into the office of Senate President will be realized. This is another desperate move by these spineless politicians to achieve through the back door what they failed to realize on the floor of the Senate, his Special Adviser on Media, Yusuph Olaniyonu, said.
But the TMG rejected that position, arguing that Mr. Saraki has resulted to creating imaginary enemies for himself in order to court the sympathy of Nigerians.
Saraki and his spin doctors are now running from pillar to post in a desperate last ditch effort to silence courageous voices. The result of this pathetic approach to clear questions of accountability, is a streak of hallucination that has led Saraki and his fellow legislooters to create imaginary enemies in order to conflate issues and deflect responsibility, Mr. Zikirullahi said.
The TMG, therefore, reiterated its position that Mr. Sarakis time as the President of the Nigerian Senate is up.
Knowing that shame, contrition and conscience are alien to characters like these, it is not surprising that they continue to defy civilised standards in human conduct. Saraki should make no mistake about it; he is the man in the dock, having to face up to the consequences of his actions.
Saraki is the one who has to cope with insomnia in this futile battle to erase the truth. He may bluff and bluster as much as he wants; the Nigerian people have made up their mind that his position is no longer tenable. There is no mistaking the fact that he has completely lost legitimacy.
Like the exposed shell companies he secretly opened in Panama, he is now an empty shell. All his diversionary antics notwithstanding, TMG insists it is time for Saraki to go. That is the verdict of the Nigerian people; in due course, the voices of the people will prevail.
Despite the country being unable to refine enough crude for local consumption of by-products, the Nigerian government destroyed more than 400 illegal refineries in three months, an official said.
The Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, in Bayelsa said it destroyed more than 400 illegal mini-refineries, called modular refineries, operated by oil thieves in state.
The NSCDC Commandant, Desmond Agu, told the News Agency of Nigeria in Yenagoa that the illegal refineries were destroyed between January and March.
Some Nigerians, including the Ijaw Youths Council, have asked the federal government to legalise and regulate the modular refineries to ensure production of petrol and other by-products and as a means of job creation.
Licensing modular refineries will reduce the pressure on the naira as the foreign exchange spent on importing the products will be conserved, the chairman of the Ijaw Council, Udengs Eradiri, said in March.
The federal government has not indicated any willingness to legalise or regulate the modular refineries.
Nigeria has been hit with a scarcity of petrol in the past months that has helped in worsening the already troubled economy. The scarcity has forced many Nigerians, who need petrol for their cars and to power their electric generators, to buy the product at the black market sometimes at 500 per cent increase in price.
On Sunday, Mr. Agu said that the command now had a gunboat to fortify its operational capacity and had intensified patrols in the coastal settlements and waterways in the state.
He said that the intensified patrols by the command had led to the arrest of an ex-militant leader and his gang, whom he said, were being prosecuted.
Mr. Agu said that the corps had deployed its personnel to provide security to critical national assets and oil facilities across the state.
We are on ground to ensure safety and protection of vital oil infrastructure and property within the command.
The command is determined to deal with the oil thieves and end their illegal businesses.
We have made some arrests concerning the recent cases of vandalism at Agips oil fields in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of the state.
The corps recovered the bodies of the three oil workers that died in the explosion in one of the fields on March 26. We have handed over the bodies to Agip.
The case has also been handed over to the Bayelsa State Police Command because it involves death and falls outside our mandate, Mr. Agu said.
Peter Idabor, the Director-General, National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, had earlier attributed the death of the oil workers to poor safety procedures at the oil field.
Meanwhile, officials of Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC) in Bayelsa and its parent company, Eni, have declined comment on the Easter Sundays explosion.
Fillippo Cotalini, Media Relations Manager, Eni, has yet to respond to the request sent to him through e-mail for a reaction on the explosion.
A similar explosion on July 9, 2015 claimed the lives of 14 people in the firms oil field in Azuzuama, in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area.
(NAN)
The Federal Government on Sunday denied media reports that the militant group, Boko Haram, is demanding $50 million from it as ransom before releasing the abducted Chibok school girls.
In an interview with the Voice of America, Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, said ransom reports were not new.
The minister said: It appears we have several versions of this report.
The one that we heard was from a source that (Boko Haram) wants to release 10 of these girls for one million Euros.
But the most important thing is that weve gone through this route before, and until and when we establish the credibility of this source and the truth behind it, the government will not be in a hurry to make a statement.
However, government is using its own channels to authenticate the credibility of this source, he said.
Mr. Mohammed assured that President Muhammadu Buhari would deliver on his promise to do all he could to ensure the release of the school girls.
He stressed that the promise by the president, following his recent meeting with parents of the abducted girls at the presidential villa, is sacrosanct.
Mr. Mohammed noted that the accusations that the Buhari administration appeared not to be doing enough to secure the release of the more than 200 Chibok girls was not fair.
No day passes without the issue of the kidnapped girls not being at the front burner. But these are highly security and intelligence issues which cannot always be discussed openly.
But I can assure you that, for this government, the return of these girls is what is going to bring the final closure on the Boko Haram terrorism and we are working very hard, daily on it, he said.
The minister restated governments position that it had made significant progress in the fight against Boko Haram.
He said that those who thought otherwise were not being very fair to us.
We inherited a very bad situation where the trail had gone cold, despite that every day we send out reports, we receive (information) some of them are phoney, some of them are just there to excoriate government.
But the truth of the matter is that its not a matter that the government is taking lightly.
Those who want a daily report on what we are doing, of course in security issues, that does not happen.
But we have channels of information in which we make available on a need to know basis, he said.
Mr. Mohammed said Nigerias military had been able to wrestle control of territories previously under the control of the Boko Haram militants.
He also said the militants had been dislodged from their fortresses, including their main operation centre in the Sambisa Forest.
What we have today is cowardly attacks on soft targets. and Nigeria has moved on from that and we are now concentrating very much on the rehabilitation and resettlement of those who were displaced.
And I think the fact that one of the most wanted persons all over the world was captured without even firing a shot last week is evidence so far of Nigerias success in dealing with terrorism, he said.
(NAN)
The Civil Society Network Against Corruption has urged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to investigate and prosecute the immediate past Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC, Paul Orhii, over allegations of corruption and illegal registration of fake drugs.
In a petition addressed to the office of the acting chairman of the anti-graft agency, the group said it is expecting the EFCC to begin prompt investigation into the allegations and also effect immediate reversal of fraudulent certification.
We are in receipt of an insider petition, detailing several allegations against the immediate past DirectorGeneral of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Dr. Paul Orhii, read the petition signed by Olanrewaju Suraju, CSNACs chairman.
He was accused of recertifying blacklisted Asian Companies, reversing ban of some drugs and allowing dangerous drugs into the country for pecuniary gains and subject to financial inducements.
Mr. Orhii was disengaged as head of NAFDAC last February after his appointment in 2009.
According to the petition, during the tenure of Mr. Orhiis predecessor, the late Professor Dora Akunyili, an assessment was conducted on all the pharmaceutical companies importing drugs into the country and based on outcomes of the assessment, some Asian countries were blacklisted for their records and penchant for producing substandard or outright fake products.
On assumption of duty as D.G, Dr. Paul Orhii recertified some of them and reallocated previously withdrawn NAFDAC registration numbers, the group said.
The implication of this is that even if a drug/product carries a NAFDAC number, it is not a guarantee that it is genuine. Registration and recertification of drugs are now done indiscriminately.
Some of the allegedly blacklisted companies that were brought back by Dr. Orhii are:
KAMALA Overseas Bombay 400002 India
MISSION Pharmaceuticals Limited India
PLIVA Pakistan (PVT) Limited
MILAN Laboratories India.
Furthermore, the petition also stated that Dr. Orhii reversed the ban on Monotherapy Artesunate, an anti-malaria treatment which has been banned worldwide by World Health Organization, WHO.
Some of the companies he permitted to bring the drugs to Nigeria are
CUS Pharmacy which brings CUSNATE
NEROS Pharmacy- Artesunate
GENEITH Pharmacy
EMBASSY Pharma Ltd.
Dr. Orhii had also been alleged to have allowed the entry of dangerous drugs like TRAMADOL into the country, according to the petition.
The said drug is highly regulated and no county in the world allows the use of more than 50mg, as it is like a narcotic in the class of cocaine. In October 2014, about 4 x 40ft and 1 x 40ft containers of unregistered drugs were intercepted at Apapa ports, including Tramadol 200mg and 150mg (far above the approved 50mg).
The said containers were seized by NAFDAC officials and on January 14, 2015, Dr. Orhii called a press conference to announce the seizure but on July 20th, 2015, he ordered the release of the dangerous drugs into the society, after allegedly receiving some millions of dollars as bribe. The said containers were released to one Dr. David West.
The group accused the ex NAFDAC boss of posting loyal members of staff to some posts to receive bribes on his behalf.
Currently, the Nigerian law does not allow importation of drugs through the land borders except through the air and sea, the group stated.
However, some drugs are being brought in through the Seme and Idiroko borders by corrupt means.
The group further alleged that one Hassan Tanko facilitated the passage of fake drugs at Nigerian Aviation Handling Company Plc and remitted $5,000 as returns to Dr. Orhii weekly.
The fake drugs are said to usually come in through Qatar Airways or DHL cargo.
We are by this petition demanding an urgent investigation into these allegations and immediate reversal of fraudulent certification by the Agency, the group said.
The Presidency has dismissed the allegations by former Governor Ibrahim Shekarau of Kano State that the Buhari administration is insensitive to the plight of Nigerians.
Reacting to the allegation in Abuja, the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, Garba Shehu, enjoined Mr. Shekarau to stop insulting the intelligence of Nigerians with his false and misleading allegations.
He noted that the audacity of Shekarau to preach about sensitivity is incredibly amazing, considering the large-scale stealing of public funds by the unseated PDP government at the expense of the welfare of the people.
The greatest insensitivity to the welfare of the people is epic corruption for which the PDP had a notorious and unrivalled record in our recent democratic history of bad governance.
The Presidential aide explained that the greed of PDP leaders respects no boundaries of decency and rationality, so much that they could illegally steal any funds within their grip or reach, including monies meant for the security of Nigerians and the welfare of soldiers fighting terrorism in the Northeast.
According to Mr. Shehu, Mr. Shekaraus colleagues in the PDP government that he served have been coughing out monies that they illegally stole while in office.
Bringing misery to your fellow countrymen and women on account of your greed and thievery is the worst example of insensitivity, he said.
He said that the wellbeing of the citizens was at the heart of the President and for this reason, the administration is seeking permanent solutions, not temporary ones to the countys economic woes by first securing it, developing infrastructure and diversifying its economy.
Mr. Shehu reassured that the several measures put in place by the Buhari administration would bear fruition in a matter of time.
On the current fuel scarcity, Mr. Shehu said the Buhari administration had saved one trillion naira on account of removing subsidy which was fraudulently making some cabals richer at the expense of the welfare of the people who were being short-changed.
He explained that the Buhari administration had significantly reduced the rate of corruption and frustrated people with corrupt and fraudulent tendencies.
According to him, those that benefitted from subsidy fraud are using their illegal gains to finance smear campaigns against the Buhari administration on the social media and other forums.
Addressing the issue of insecurity, Mr. Shehu said the Boko Haram terrorist group had been so thoroughly militarily weakened that they no longer have the capabilities and staying power to confront our troops, or occupy any part of Nigerian territory without being decisively expelled.
He recalled that markets and bus stations that were closed three years ago in the Northeast are now being reopened, thanks to the decisive restoration of relative peace in the area by our now motivated and reinvigorated troops.
The Buhari administration is also proud to say that poor Nigerians that were once displaced by terrorist attacks are now returning to their liberated towns and villages, and this government wont relent until it rids the country of the vestiges of terrorism.
According to the presidential aide, the commitment of the Buhari administration to fighting corruption is firm and irrevocable, and that every stolen kobo would be recovered and channelled into improving the welfare of Nigerians.
(NAN)
Nigerias spy agency, SSS, announced on Saturday that it has discovered mass graves of Hausa-Fulani residents abducted and murdered by suspected members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB, in Abia State.
The agency said IPOB carried out the massacre of people of northern Nigerian origin as part of its efforts to destabilise the country.
In a statement signed by its spokesperson, Tony Opuiyo, the SSS said the killing has triggered tension among different communities in Abia State.
Although Mr. Opuiyo said five men were killed alongside several other unidentified persons, only the names of four individuals were provided.
The Service has uncovered the heinous role played by members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), in the abduction/kidnap of five Hausa-Fulani residents, namely Mohammed Gainako, Ibrahim Mohammed, Idris Yakubu and Isa Mohammed Rago at Isuikwuato LGA in Abia State, Mr. Opuiyo said.
The abducted men were later discovered at the Umuanyi forest, Abia State, where they were suspected to have been killed by their abductors and buried in shallow graves, amidst fifty (50) other shallow graves of unidentified persons.
Arrest and investigation conducted so far, revealed that elements within the IPOB, carried out this dastardly action, he added.
Mr. Opuiyo said he was alerting Nigerians to the divisive and gruesome activities of IPOB operatives, allegedly led by fiery broadcaster, Nnamdi Kanu.
Mr. Kanu has been standing trial for treasonable felony since he his arrest on October 17, 2015, after entering Nigeria from the UK where he lives.
It is pertinent therefore to alert the general public that IPOB, is gradually showing its true divisive colour and objectives, while steadily embarking on gruesome actions in a bid to ignite ethnic terrorism and mistrust amongst non-indigenes in the South-East region and other parts of the country.
Following this act, tension is currently rife among communal stakeholders in the State with possibilities of spillover to other parts of country, Mr. Opuiyo said.
In a related development, the SSS has released an update on the recent incarceration of Khalid al-Barnawi, a former Boko Haram leader, in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, describing it as a major breakthrough.
This Service wish (sic) to inform the general public that further to its efforts to stem the tide of terrorism in the Country, it has recorded another major breakthrough in the arrest of one Mohammed USMAN, widely known as Khalid al-Barnawi, alias Kafuri/ Naziru/Alhaji Yahaya/Malam Dauda/Alhaji Tanimu.
Khalid al-Barnawj was apprehended by this Service on 1st April, 2016, in Lokoja, Kogi State, while hiding under a false cover. Al-Barnawi was a founding member of the Jamaat Ahl as-Sunnah lid Dawah Wal-Jihad (Boko Haram) and later the Amir of the break-away faction, Jamaat Ansarul Muslimim Fi Biladi Sudan (JAMBS).
Khalid al-Barnawi is a trained terrorist commander, who has been coordinating terrorist activities in Nigeria, while talent-spotting and recruiting vulnerable young and able Nigerians for terrorist training by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in North African States and the Middle-East.
Subject was involved in many terrorist attacks in States of the Federation, including Bauchi, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Sokoto and FCT-Abuja. This resulted in the killing and maiming of innocent citizens of this Country. Al-Barnawi is also responsible for the bombing of the United Nations building in Abuja, on 26th August, 2011; the kidnapping of two European civil engineers in Kebbi State in May, 2011, and their subsequent murder in Sokoto State; the kidnap of a German engineer, Edgar Raupach in January, 2012, the kidnap and murder of seven expatriate staff of Setraco Construction Company at Jamaare, in Bauchi State in February, 2013, the attack of Nigerian troops at Okene in Kogi State, while on transit to Abuja for an official assignment.
Meanwhile, subject would soon be charged to Court to face his charges after investigation is completed.
This arrest is a major milestone in the counter-terrorism fight of this Service. This arrest has strengthened the Services resolve that no matter how long and far perpetrators of crime and their sponsors may run, this Service in collaboration with other sister security agencies, will bring them to justice.
The Ondo State Police Command said on Saturday that they are yet to confirm if those who carried out an attack on Olu Falaes farm along Igbatoro Road in Akure on April 2 were Fulani herdsmen.
The police also confirmed the death of one of the security guards at the farm following the attack by the hoodlums.
Sources said the attackers were Fulani herdsmen numbering about 10, who subdued the guard and took him away.
His lifeless body was found several day later at a pool a few kilometres from the farm.
The Police Public Relations Officer, Femi Joseph, told PREMIUM TIMES on phone that the police were on the trail of the criminals.
Our men are searching for those who perpetrated the act and I am sure they will soon be found, Mr. Joseph said.
We cannot tell now whether they are Fulani herdsmen or not, when we get them we will know what ethnic group they belonged.
He also assured that the command had provided security for the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
Mr. Falae was kidnapped in October at the same farm where the recent attack took place and was let go only after N5 million was paid as ransom.
The suspended Kaduna University Lecturer, John Danfulani, has recanted statements he made against supporters of Nigerias ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
Mr. Danfulani in December stirred controversy by lashing at supporters of the APC, northern leaders, and President Muhammadu Buhari. He also mocked the large number of out-of-school children in the north.
Part of his Facebook post said, To them, APC is a religious party. Northern leaders under the party are demigods and crusaders of their ways of life. These people living in dusty villages of Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Kano, Jigawa are quick in calling you Arne or Kafiri (Meaning Pagan) once you express your view on anything their God PMB and his brigade of small Angels are doing. Attack the attacker, and lets the skies fall.
Mr. Danfulani confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES that he authored the post, which was widely circulated among Kaduna residents.
He was subsequently suspended by the university for the post, which he later deleted.
However, in an interview on Wednesday with the Voice of America Hausa radio service, he denied confirming the facebook post to PREMIUM TIMES.
Speaking in Hausa he said I never had any discussion with the PREMIUM TIMES, it was a lie, Mr. Danfulani said to VOA.
However, PREMIUM TIMES stands by its report that Mr. Danfulani confirmed authoring the facebook post, saying: Yes. I stand by it 100%.
The lecturer has since been suspended by the Kaduna state University and currently facing litigation by the police for making the post which the police claims almost caused breakdown of law and order in the state.
It is not clear if Mr. Danfulani was pressured into recanting his earlier statements. Several calls made to his mobile phone did not go through and he did not respond to email sent to him.
An activist and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has threatened to go to court if the Muhammadu Buhari administration goes ahead to borrow $5.5 billion from international creditors.
Instead of taking loans to increase the nations debt profile, the Lagos lawyer advised the government to recover the $200 billion allegedly withheld by federal agencies and multinational corporations.
Mr. Falanas threat was contained in a letter to the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, dated April 8, with a copy made available to PREMIUM TIMES.
In the letter titled, Request for the Collection of Outstanding Revenue of $200 billion Withheld from the Federation Account or Stolen by Looters, the lawyer also warned the government against collecting a $2 billion loan from the Chinese Government.
Following a report that the administration had concluded plans to borrow $2.5 billion from the World Bank and another $1 billion from the African Development Bank, Mr. Falana said he wrote requesting the government to jettison the plan.
In a previous letter dated February 12, addressed to Mrs. Adeosun, the lawyer said he urged the government to explore alternative revenue sources to fund the 2016 budget instead of increasing the nations external debt which currently stands at $64 billion.
In particular, we requested the federal government to embark on the recovery of the revenue of $42 billion withheld from the Federation Account from 1999-2012 by some transnational oil companies, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and other agencies of the federal government, Mr. Falana wrote.
In your reply dated March 17, 2016, you (Mrs. Adeosun) assured us that the issues raised in our letter were receiving the attention of the federal government. We were therefore surprised to learn that the administration had applied to the Chinese Government for another loan of $2 billion.
In urging the Federal Government to desist from taking the loan of $2 billion from China or any other country we are compelled to advise the federal government to intensify efforts to recover the nations wealth which has been criminally diverted by a handful of local and foreign looters.
Mr. Falana urged the government to direct the relevant agencies and the anti-graft bodies to recover the nations stolen funds.
He drew attention to the report by the National Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, covering 1999-2012, which indicated that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, some oil majors and agencies of the government withheld $20.2 billion for the Federation Account.
He listed other funds being withheld from the federal purse by different agencies and companies and advised the government to compel them to remit such funds to the Federation Account.
In the light of the foregoing, we are compelled to call on the Federal Government to muster the political will and courage to recover the aforesaid withheld or stolen wealth of not less than $200 billion belonging to the Nigerian people, Mr. Falana said.
However, if you (Mrs. Adeosun) refuse to accede to our request, we shall have no alternative than to initiate legal proceedings at the Federal High Court with a view to restraining the federal government from further plunging the nation into external indebtedness.
Read the full text of the letter below:
8th April, 2016
The Honourable Minister of Finance,
Federal Ministry of Finance,
Ahmadu Bello Way,
Central Business District,
Abuja, FCT.
Dear Honourable Minister,
REQUEST FOR THE COLLECTION OF OUTSTANDING REVENUE OF $200 BILLION WITHHELD FROM THE FEDERATION ACCOUNT OR STOLEN BY LOOTERS
Following a recent report that the Federal Government had concluded arrangements take a loan of $2.5 billion from the World Bank and $1 billion the African Development Bank we wrote to the Administration requested to jettison the plan. In our letter dated February 12, 2016 addressed to your good self we urged the Federal Government to explore alternative sources of raising revenue to fund the 2016 budget instead of increasing the nations external debt of $64 billion. In particular, we requested the federal government to embark on the recovery of the revenue of $42 billion withheld from the Federation Account from 1999-2012 by some transnational oil companies, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and other agencies of the federal government.
In your reply dated March 17, 2016 you assured us that the issues raised in our letter were receiving the attention of the Federal Government. We were therefore surprised to learn that the Administration had applied to the Chinese Government for another loan of $2 billion. In urging the Federal Government to desist from taking the loan of $2 billion from China or any other country we are compelled to advise the Federal Government to intensify efforts to recover the nations wealth which has been criminally diverted by a handful of local and foreign looters. The Federal Government may wish to direct the relevant agencies and the anti graft bodies to collect the stolen wealth including the following:
(a) The National Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative has confirmed that from five cycles of independent audit reports of NEITI covering 1999-2012 the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), some oil companies and certain agencies of the federal government had withheld $20.2 billion for the Federation Account. The indicted oil companies and agencies should be made to remit the said sum of $20.2 billion into the Federation Account.
(b) In 2006, the Central Bank of Nigeria apportioned $7 billion out of the nations external reserves to 14 Nigerian banks. In 2008, the CBN also gave a bailout of N600 billion ($4 billion) to the banks. The indebted banks should be asked to repay the $11 billion loan.
(c) On September 6, 2016 the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) announced that arrangements had been concluded to recover the sum of $9.6 billion in over-deducted tax benefits from joint venture partners on major capital projects and oil swap contracts. Since the NNPC is said to have recovered the said sum of $9.6 billion it should be remitted into the Federation Account.
(d) Sometime in 2009, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited applied to the federal government for the renewal of three oil blocks. Upon granting the application the NNPC asked Mobil to pay the sum of $2.5 billion for the renewal of the licences. Curiously, the $600 million paid by the Mobil was accepted by the federal government. One of our clients has requested the EFCC to investigate the circumstances surrounding the fraudulent transaction. The outstanding sum of $1.9 billion ought to be collected from Mobil and paid into the federation account.
(e) From 1998-2014 the Federal Government collected over $4 billion from the over $5 billion stolen from the vaults of the CBN by a former military ruler, the late General Sani Abacha. I have submitted a petition to the Economic and Financial Commission to investigate the alleged criminal diversion of the recovered loot by some former public officers. The governments of the United States and Switzerland have promised to repatriate $458 million and $321 million respectively recovered from the loot.
(f) In 1999, the Abdulsalami Abubakar military junta enacted the Deep Offshore Inland Sharing Contract Decree to give effect to certain fiscal incentives for the oil and gas companies operating in the Deep Offshore and Inland Basin under production sharing contracts. Thus, by virtue of section 5 of the Act, the payment of royalty in respect of the Deep Offshore production sharing contracts shall range from 4 to 12 per cent while no royalty shall be paid whatsoever in areas in excess of 1000 metres depth! Since the 15-year period of for non-payment of royalties expired in June 2014 the should collect arrears of royalties running to hundreds of millions of dollars owed by the oil and gas companies operating in the area.
(g) The $470 million contract awarded to ZTE, (a Chinese company) in 2009 by the federal government for the construction of CCTV cameras in Abuja and Lagos has been abandoned. Hence, the cameras which were installed did not capture the criminals who recently launched bomb attacks in Abuja and killed scores of citizens. Since the contract was not executed the federal government should recover the contract sum of $470 million.
(h) In the Appropriation Act, 2011 the sum of N245 billion was earmarked for fuel subsidy. In violation of the budget law the federal government fraudulently paid out N2.5 trillion ($16 billion) to a cabal of fuel importers. The investigation conducted into the large scale fraud by the Police and the anti graft agencies was compromised due to pressure from the Jonathan administration. The EFCC should revisit the matter.
(i) On July 6, 2012 the Supreme Court of Nigeria set aside the fraudulent sale of the federal government owned Aluminium Smelting Company of Nigeria (ASCON) located in Akwa Ibom state to RUSAL for $250 million and directed the company be sold BFIG, the winner of the bid for $410 million. The federal government should direct the National Council of Privatisation to comply with the judgment. The federal government stands to realise an additional sum of $160 million from the sale.
(j) For contravention of the law on compulsory registration of all SIM cards the NCC imposed a fine of $5.2 billion on MTN last year. Based on plea by the MTN management and the intervention of the Government of South Africa the fine was reduced to $3.9 billion out of which MTN has paid the paltry sum of $250 million. Since MTN has withdrawn the suit challenging the payment of the fine the federal government should take steps to ensure the prompt payment of the outstanding balance of $3.65 billion.
(k) Under the Jonathan administration it was estimated that the nation was recording oil theft worth $7 billion to criminals annually. An investigation being carried out by a team of lawyers hired by the federal government has so far confirmed that hundreds of millions of barrels of oil were stolen by oil companies and shipped to many countries. According to the lawyers the total amount recoverable by the Nigeria Government from the Sellers and Buyers who stole Nigerias hydrocarbons and shipped same to the United States from January 2011 to December 2014 stands at US$12.7 billion. Since the verification is programmed to cover 10 years it is estimated that Nigeria can recover not less than $100 billion from the undeclared millions of barrels of oil shipped to the United States and other countries. The EFCC should collaborate with the lawyers to recover the missing fund and prosecute the transnational oil companies involved in the grand oil theft.
(l) On February 20, 2014, President Goodluck Jonathan fired the then Central Bank Governor, Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi for having the temerity to expose the NNPC for not remitting $20 billion to the Federation Account. Following the reconciliation of the accounts of the NNPC by the federal government the missing sum was said to be $10.8 billion. To douse the tension generated by the scandal the Federal Government appointed a firm of auditors to audit the books of the NNPC. But in a bid to cover up the scandal the Federal Government ensured that the auditors were denied access to vital documents. At the end of the investigation the auditors indicted the NNPC for withholding $1.8 billion from the Federation Account.
(m) Rising from its monthly meeting at Abuja on September 17, 2015 the National Economic Council accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) of failing to remit N3.8 trillion to the Federation Account under the Jonathan administration. The Council set up a committee of 3 state governors to trace the missing fund. Last month, the Auditor-General of the Federation indicted the NNPC for withholding N3.2 trillion from the Federation Account in 2014. The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission has said that the total indebtedness of the NNPC to the Federation Account is N4.9 trillion ($32.6). In its reaction to the allegations the NNPC has challenged the figures but admitted that it has withheld the sum of N326 billion! The federal government should investigate the conflicting figures to determine the actual amount withheld by the NNPC.
(o) The unprecedented looting of the public treasury via the NNPC took place under the rogue regime of President Goodluck Jonathan has continued unabated under the President Buhari who is currently waging a war against corruption. Last week, a firm of auditors revealed that out of the sum of $6.4 billion realised from the sale of crude oil and gas by the Federal Government in the first quarter of 2016 the NNPC remitted only $2 billion to the Federation Account and withheld the colossal sum of $4.2 billion. Up till now the NNPC has not explained how much of the sum of $4.2 billion was spent on its operations in 3 months.
(p) The presidential panel instituted by President Buhari to investigate the criminal diversion of the fund earmarked for procurement of weapons for the armed forces from 2007-2015 has established that over $8 billion was stolen by handful of serving and retired military officers and their civilian collaborators via the Office of the National Security Adviser and the Nigerian Air Force. The Panel is currently probing similar fraudulent arms procurement in the Nigerian Army and Nigerian Navy. The EFCC has commenced the recovery of the said sum of $8 billion and prosecution of individuals and corporate bodies implicated in the criminal diversion.
(q) The United States Government has successfully prosecuted Halliburton and its top officials for bribing Nigerian public officers with $180 million and recovered fines of about $1.3 billion. Although no one was prosecuted in Nigeria the federal government about $200 million was paid by Halliburton and other indicted companies through plea bargain.
(r) The sale of the OPM 245 for $1.3 billion otherwise known as malabu oil deal has continued to generate controversy. Allegations of bribery and money laundering are being investigated by the British Police, the Italian Police and the EFCC. Apart from the $210 million signature bonus paid to the federal government the sum of $190 million has been frozen in the United Kingdom and Switzerland. The Italian Police has also frozen $200 million from the proceed of the transaction. The federal government ought to take a final decision on the matter so as to end the controversy surrounding the sale of the oil block.
In the light of the foregoing, we are compelled to call on the Federal Government to muster the political will and courage to recover the aforesaid withheld or stolen wealth of not less than $200 billion belonging to the Nigerian people. However, if you refuse to accede to our request we shall have no alternative than to initiate legal proceedings at the Federal High Court with a view to restraining the Federal Government from further plunging the nation into external indebtedness.
The acting Managing Director, Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Ibim Semenitari, said the biggest challenge she had upon assumption of office was the fact that we are owing so many people.
Ms. Semenitari disclosed this on Sunday when she featured on the News Agency of Nigeria Forum in Abuja.
She said the commission owed more than 8,600 contractors between N400 billion and N450 billion when she assumed office, but about 600 of them were paid by her administration.
She said that the paucity of funds coupled with the public perception of the commission became sources of concern for the management of NDDC.
She, however, said that the commission had to deal with both challenges and reinvigorate the workforce to be able to get to its present state.
Thats a lot of money; so the first challenge was you have so many contracts and you have so much debt so there was a big hole right there.
The second was the perception problem. The commission was perceived rightly or wrongly as a place you just come, take your own share and go; it was also perceived to be a corrupt place.
And we also had to deal with the need to professionalise the workforce basically in terms of how you reposition the people.
And also reinvigorate the workforce so that people will have a sense of freshness and a sense of new challenges because we can get people back on track.
According to Ms. Sementari, better days will come for the commission by the time its funding partners pay up the amount they are owing.
She said that with payment of the outstanding monies, the projects the commission was handling would become visible.
She added that the late passage of the budget of the commission had hampered proper planning and proper management of the commission.
By law, we are funded with three per cent from oil companies; we are funded from the ecological fund and then we are also funded from the amount of money accruable to the state.
We had a situation where we were being owed by all of our funding partners.
The Federal Government, who is our owner, was owing us about N800 billion.
Whereas the law provides for specific kinds of funding for the commission, unfortunately the commission had not been receiving its own funds as at when due; so this was one of the challenges that I had to deal with.
And then of course perhaps the last and the critical one is the fact of late budgets. The NDDC budget is always late and that doesnt help for planning.
It comes so late in the year, indeed I hear sometimes as late as October, by which time the year is ending.
And thats because the NDDC budget by the budget practice doesnt go along with all the other budgets.
For that reason the budget process of the NDDC begins after and so terminates ridiculously late in the year, by which time of course by planning and everything make us almost ridiculous and impossible for the management to function within the appropriation act.
She, however, called for speedy passage of the budget of the commission to ensure smooth operation within a given financial year.
The NDDC boss also said the commission spent N9.2 billion on execution of projects between January and March, 2016.
As at Jan. 1 2016, our balance of account was N9.9 billion. And then within this period under review that is January to March- for that first quarter, we received N6.8 billion from the Federal Government and N32 billion from oil companies, so that total inflow as at March was about N48. 9billion.
These are the expenses we have made in the course of the period.
The recurrent payment including salary and allowances and other expenditure were stood at N7 billion and payment for projects stood at N9.2 billion.
There was no accusation of any capital fixed asset within the period under review.
So, the total of expenditure within the period under review is N16.3 billion.
She said the cash balance as at March 25, 2016 was N32. 26 billion.
This means that when I make payment this week or next week, that has taken to the second quarter.
The acting managing director said before the commission paid any contractor, it processed the interim payment certificate.
The way we pay, we process the interim payment certificate.
And then the number of interim payment certificates that have processed for payment is 153 but we have worked more (than) these numbers.
Those that are still in the process, action is being taken, some of them have treated 493 interim payment certificates.
Ms. Semenitari said the commission paid 642 out of the 8600 contractors during the period under review.
Basically, what I am saying is that I have addressed over 600 contractors. In other word, 600 projects have treated during the period under review.
We have been able to complete about 28 projects in this period.
(NAN)
The Senator representing Kaduna Central, Shehu Sani, on Sunday criticised the religious bill by the Kaduna State government, saying it was absolutely wrong.
The bill, according to the state governor, Nasir El-Rufai, is to regulate public preaching in the state and to ensure violent religious sects are not allowed to thrive.
Mr. Sani, who has been at loggerheads with the governor over other programmes, however, said the government had no right to regulate or issue licenses to religious preachers in the state.
The lawmaker spoke shortly after receiving an award of excellence by the youth wing of Ansarul-Deen Society of Nigeria during their 40 years anniversary and fundraising programme.
He said it was painful for him to receive a merit award from the group when majority of Nigerians were suffering.
Its painful to receive this merit award when majority of Nigerians are still expecting good governance. Nigerians are facing lots of challenges and we the elected leaders cannot continue to give them excuses.
They did not elect us to lament, they didnt elect us to give them excuses. We were elected to give them good governance. Im not the kind of person that will see black and say its white. Whether we are in same party or not I will not see wrong and say its right.
I did that during the military era and I will continue to tell the truth even now. Nigerians spent hours under sun to vote for us and so we must not fail them. We must do what the people want and not what we want as leaders because they voted for us.
This is why we say the proposed religious bill in Kaduna State is absolutely wrong and we will not accept anybody to licence any preacher because people have the right to practice their religion as enshrined in the constitution.
Nobody can violate the constitution because freedom of religion is enshrined in the constitution. We are also calling on the state governor not to over tax the people because they have suffered a lot under the 16 years of PDP, he said.
The Senator also urged Nigerians to pray for President Muhammadu Buharis administration to succeed, saying the president has succeeded in tackling the insurgents in North East.
President Muhammadu Buhari is really working for Nigeria and for the masses of this country. Therefore, we must continue to pray for him to succeed, he said.
Mr. Sani later announced the donation of N2 million for the completion for the Ansarul-Deen Youth Centre.
Other people who received the merit award for their contributions to humanity include former Director General Media and Publicity to former Kaduna State Governor, Ahmed Maiyaki; Kaduna NASFAT branch Chairman, Abdulwaheed Adepoju; and NASFAT Kaduna Branch Chief Missionary Officer, Marooph Raji.
NAFSAT like Ansarul-Deen is an Islamic organisation.
Every day, Alexis Udine checks her companys Facebook account, pins her companys pictures on Pinterest and generates leads through Twitter.
Her company, Schaeffer Family Homes, monitors analytics to see what social media sites work best at directing customers to its homepage.
And its become a growing part of how new homebuilders in South Jersey and the country try to attract customers.
How much are homes selling for near you? Transactions are from county property records. Settlement dates are listed; deed filings may
Area professionals say builders gain distinct advantages by using social media.
Its a way to show businesses, Realtors, contractors how you can actually key in real time and real conversations for people discussing the needs to buy and use your services, said Rich Campanaro, director of digital strategy at NJ Advance Media.
The issue was the subject of a seminar at the Atlantic Builders Convention in Atlantic City last month: #Insta-gratification! Identify. Communicate. Convert.
Dont wait, learn the #NEW language, the seminars description read.
According to a report from Search Engine Journal, 70 percent of marketers have used Facebook to gain new customers and 34 percent of marketers have used Twitter to generate leads.
And in a study from Vocus Public Relations, 87 percent of all small businesses said social media helps their businesses.
Everyone is hitting the Web before any option when they research, and consumers are extremely well educated, said Colleen Meloro, vice president of marketing at JM Weichert Group. They are coming from all different parts of the state. Its the first place that every consumer goes for all of their information.
For Gina Russo of Russo Homes LLC in Swedesboro, Gloucester County, learning social media hasnt been easy.
Though her Facebook account is fairly up to date, the companys Twitter page hasnt logged a new tweet in over a year.
New Pleasantville complex finding retail tenants PLEASANTVILLE Two retail units at City Center on Main Street will soon be occupied, and 7,
Ive been learning as I go along, and Ive been pulling ideas from other businesses, Russo said. Ive been working lately on trying to increase likes to our Facebook page, and Ive done sponsored ads, so that has been helping.
Russo said Facebook traffic has been increasing, and she plans to create an Instagram page to upload company photos.
Its been going well. Ive been seeing a lot more activity in the last few weeks, which is promising, Russo said.
Jennifer Stark, marketing manager at K. Hovnavian Homes in Edison, Middlesex County, said social media marketing is important for small businesses.
If youre on Facebook, youre getting Facebook ads; if youre on Instagram, youre getting ads. Its all about keeping up with the trends, Stark said.
Udine said staying consistent with social media marketing is the key.
She posts real estate articles for her 2,000 readers to view. She tweets best wishes to mothers on Mothers Day on Schaeffer Family Homes Twitter page.
Its all about remaining accountable to your audience, Udine said.
Stay active and consistent in posting and getting your product out there, but you dont always want to push product. You want to provide information and engage, Udine said.
Contact: 609-272-7258
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.
Name : php
Product : Fedora 23
Version : 5.6.20
Release : 1.fc23
URL : http://www.php.net/
Summary : PHP scripting language for creating dynamic web sites
Description :
PHP is an HTML-embedded scripting language. PHP attempts to make it
easy for developers to write dynamically generated web pages. PHP also
offers built-in database integration for several commercial and
non-commercial database management systems, so writing a
database-enabled webpage with PHP is fairly simple. The most common
use of PHP coding is probably as a replacement for CGI scripts.
The php package contains the module (often referred to as mod_php)
which adds support for the PHP language to Apache HTTP Server.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Update Information:
31 Mar 2016, **PHP 5.6.20** **CLI Server:** * Fixed bug php#69953 (Support
MKCALENDAR request method). (Christoph) **Core:** * Fixed bug php#71596
(Segmentation fault on ZTS with date function (setlocale)). (Anatol) **Curl:**
* Fixed bug php#71694 (Support constant CURLM_ADDED_ALREADY). (mpyw) **Date:**
* Fixed bug php#71635 (DatePeriod::getEndDate segfault). (Thomas Punt)
**Fileinfo:** * Fixed bug php#71527 (Buffer over-write in finfo_open with
malformed magic file). (Anatol) **Mbstring:** * Fixed bug php#71906
(AddressSanitizer: negative-size-param (-1) in mbfl_strcut). (Stas) **ODBC:**
* Fixed bug php#47803, php#69526 (Executing prepared statements is succesfull
only for the first two statements). (einavitamar, Anatol) * Fixed bug php#71860
(Invalid memory write in phar on filename with \0 in name). (Stas)
**PDO_DBlib:** * Fixed bug php#54648 (PDO::MSSQL forces format of datetime
fields). (steven, Anatol) **Phar:** * Fixed bug php#71625 (Crash in php7.dll
with bad phar filename). (Anatol) * Fixed bug php#71504 (Parsing of tar file
with duplicate filenames causes memory leak). (Jos Elstgeest) **SNMP:** *
Fixed bug php#71704 (php_snmp_error() Format String Vulnerability). (andrew)
**Standard** * Fixed bug php#71798 (Integer Overflow in php_raw_url_encode).
(taoguangchen, Stas)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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References:
[ 1 ] Bug #1323114 - php: Integer overflow in php_raw_url_encode
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1323114
[ 2 ] Bug #1323108 - php: Format string vulnerability in php_snmp_error()
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1323108
[ 3 ] Bug #1323106 - php: Invalid memory write in phar on filename containing
\0 inside name
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1323106
[ 4 ] Bug #1323103 - php: Negative size parameter in memcpy
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1323103
[ 5 ] Bug #1323118 - file: Buffer over-write in finfo_open with malformed
magic file
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1323118
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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This update can be installed with the "yum" update program. Use
su -c 'yum update php' at the command line.
For more information, refer to "Managing Software with yum",
available at https://docs.fedoraproject.org/yum/.
All packages are signed with the Fedora Project GPG key. More details on the
GPG keys used by the Fedora Project can be found at
https://fedoraproject.org/keys
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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package-announce mailing list
package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org
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New Delhi, April 7 : A week after it blocked efforts to ban Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar, China on Thursday supported India against the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruling that opposes India's domestic manufacturing under its National Solar Mission.
The WTO on February 24 ruled against India's 'Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission' on the plea that New Delhi's efforts towards the indigenous production of solar cells violated WTO rules. The ruling came on a 2013 complaint filed by the US.
"We support India in their appeal against the WTO ruling. We support the domestic industry to manufacture products for the solar industry," said Xie Zhenhua, Special Representative for Climate Change of China.
The Chinese support came at the 22nd BASIC Ministerial meeting on climate change held in New Delhi, where Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar was representing India. Representatives from the other countries Brazil, South Africa and China were also present.
Last week, India's move to get Pathankot terror attacks mastermind, JeM chief Masood Azhar, banned by the UN was rebuffed by China - for the second such time, causing huge disappointment in India. China, a close friend of Pakistan, had said that Azhar did not meet the UN criteria to be banned as a terrorist.
China's burgeoning solar industry too faces political opposition in the US.
A joint statement issued by the four countries here welcomed the adoption of the Paris Agreement on climate change - 21st Conference of Parties (COP-21) in December last year.
The United States had in 2013 filed a complaint with the WTO against India providing support to domestic solar cell manufacturers under its National Solar Mission, which Washington said was against the international trade agreement. USA claimed that India violated domestic content requirements (DCR) rules. A three-member dispute settlement panel of the WTO was set up in 2013. The panel ruled against India on February 24, 2016.
India in its appeal against the WTO ruling, argued that the DCR measure were justified on the ground that they secure its compliance with laws required to promote sustainable development.
India also argued that its solar programme was helping it to meet its commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
India's solar energy programme is considered one of the world's largest and fastest renewable energy programmes. At present India generates around 5,000 megawatts of solar energy from virtually nil some five years back.
India had also scaled up its target to produce solar energy by pushing ahead the 20,000 megawatts of solar electricity generation to 1,00,000 megawatts by 2022.
In the meeting, India along with China, Brazil and South Africa issued a joint statement to ratify the Paris 'COP 21 Global Climate Agreement' in New York on April 22.
New Delhi, April 7 : In the first visit by an Indian minister to Iran since sanctions against it were lifted earlier this year, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will be in the country for two days, to be followed by a visit to the UAE on April 11-12, an official statement said on Thursday.
"Pradhan will meet the Iranian minister of petroleum, the senior adviser to president of Iran on free trade zones and governor of Central Bank of Iran, in Tehran. He would also be addressing the Tehran Chamber of Commerce," said a petroleum ministry statement.
"He will be visiting Chabahar free trade zone to interact with FTZ authorities. The last visit by an Indian minister of petroleum and natural gas to Iran was in April 2007," it said.
"The trade relations have traditionally been buoyed by Indian import of Iranian crude oil," it added.
The ministry also said Indis-Iran trade during fiscal 2014-15 was worth $13.13 billion. In that fiscal, India imported $8.95 billion worth of goods, mainly crude oil and exported commodities worth $4.17 billion.
India is also seeking rights to develop the Farzad-B gas field in the Persian Gulf that was discovered by India's ONGC Videsh Ltd.
Pradhan's visit to the United Arab Emirates is a follow up of the February India visit of Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Energy Minister Suhail Mohammed Al Mazrouei.
Pradhan will meet Al Mazrouei, besides meeting with the CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and the chairman of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the statement said.
"During his stay in Dubai, Pradhan will meet Emirati businessmen, inaugurate the India Pavilion at the Annual Investment Meet-2016 and visit the Jabel Ali Free Zone Authority," it added.
UAE contributes in a major way to India's energy security, being the sixth largest supplier of crude oil. India is the second largest destination for UAE's oil exports.
Washington, April 8 : US Secretary of State John Kerry has called on Iran to stop its destabilising behaviour and work with its neighbours in the Middle East to end the wars in Yemen and Syria.
Kerry, who is on a visit to Bahrain to meet foreign ministers in the Gulf Cooperation Council, on Thursday said the US was concerned about Iran.
Last week, the US Navy seized hundreds of AK-47 assault rifles, rocket-propelled-grenade launchers and machine guns from a small ship. Kerry said the weapons were on the move from Iran to arm Houthi rebels in Yemen, the Washington Post reported.
"Rather than send weapons to the Houthis, join in efforts to convince them to make peace," Kerry said.
The US officials were concerned about fragility of the existing cease-fire in Syria and have expressed uncertainty over the prospects for a cease-fire that is due to start this weekend in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition of Gulf countries conducting airstrikes against the Iranian-backed Houthis.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, whose country chairs the GCC, said relations with Iran will be chilly till the country ends its interventionist policies.
"We stressed that if Iran wants to have normal relations with the GCC states, it has to change its policies and abide by the good-neighbourhood principle," he said.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has made overtures for warmer relations, efforts that powerful segments of the Iranian government do not support.
"Tehran wants interaction with the world, with its neighbouring countries," Rouhani said on Thursday.
The criticism of Iran emanating from the Gulf came as ships in the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain, joined in a three-week, multinational exercise to practice mine clearing and other tactics designed to keep open the sea lanes through which at least a third of the world's oil resources are shipped.
At least four ships thought to be bound from Iran to Yemen have been stopped in the past six months, and large quantities of weapons seized.
"If Iran is going to give meaning to the words in the last few days about wanting to work with people, it is by getting engaged in making peace in Yemen, not adding more weapons and fuelling the conflict," Kerry said.
Kathmandu, April 8 : In a crackdown on circulation of fake Indian currency in Nepal, police here on Friday said they have arrested six people, including a Pakistani national, for possessing fake Indian currency notes with a face value of Rs.10 million.
The six -- one Pakistani and five Nepali nationals -- were arrested by the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police and paraded before media at a press conference here.
According to police, one of them has been identified as Mahammad Nadim (PP number CD 9458742, Karachi) who was arrested from Thamel area of Kathmandu.
Similarly, five Nepali nationals -- Umadevi Pandey, Ishowari Prasad Teli, Parmandna Yadav, Dil Bahadur Thapa and Mahadev Timilsina -- were arrested from various locations of Kathmandu. They were held while travelling to Kathmandu to receive the fake Indian currency notes.
All the Nepali nationals hail from districts close to the Nepal-India border.
After receiving the fake notes from Nadim and Mahadev, they were planning to sneak into India for circulating the counterfeit currency, police said.
Using the open Nepal-India border, counterfeiters smuggle fake notes to India from the Nepali side and in most cases Nepalis, Indians and Pakistanis were found involved.
Circulation of fake Indian notes using Nepal's territory is a top Indian security concern.
Brussels, April 10 : Paris attacks suspect Mohamed Abrini who was arrested on Friday in Brussels has confessed to investigators that he is "the man in the hat" caught in the Brussels airport security cameras on March 22, Belgian federal prosecutor said on Saturday.
"He was confronted with the results of various expert assessments and admitted his presence," Xinhua quoted the federal prosecutor as saying.
"The person told investigators that he had thrown his jacket in a trash can and then sold his hat."
Abrini was placed under arrest and charged with participation in a terrorist group and terrorist murders, the federal prosecutor said.
Abrini, wanted for suspected involvement in the November terrorist attacks in Paris, was arrested Friday along with five others in Brussels, by Belgian police.
Among the arrested is Osama Krayem, who as Brussels bombings probe has revealed is the second man who was present during the Maelbeek Metro Station attack.
Krayem was also present in the City 2 shop center of Brussels when buying bags that were used in the attacks, reported the Belgian broadcaster RTBF.
He was also placed under arrest and charged with participation in a terrorist group and terrorist murders.
Another two suspects, Herve B.M. and Bilal E.M., were charged with participation in a terrorist group and terrorist murders complicity.
Two more people, who were arrested along with Abrini were released after thorough hearing.
Los Angeles, April 10 : Actress Charlize Theron feels "incredibly lucky" that her mother looks after her children so much.
The 40-year-old, who is mother to four-year-old son Jackson and eight-month-old daughter August, shared that she feels very fortunate that her own parent Gerda takes on the role of a "full-time grandmother", reports femalefirst.co.uk.
"I'm a single mum. I'm incredibly lucky my mother is a full-time grandmother," Britain's GQ magazine quoted Theron as saying.
Patna, April 10 : Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday said he was "saddened" by the fire at a Kerala temple in which nearly 100 people were killed.
"Saddened by the Kerala temple fire tragedy. My heartfelt condolences to families of the deceased and prayers with those injured," the chief minister tweeted.
At least 96 people have been killed and over 300 injured in a massive blaze triggered by celebratory fireworks at Paravur town's Puttingal temple, about 60 km from Thiruvananthapuram capital city.
New Delhi, April 10 : The beleaguered liquor baron Vijay Mallya's offer to pay Rs.4,000 crore out of Rs.9,000 crore pending debt conveys his "intention" to repay the loan, and the public sector lenders should consider it carefully, industry organisation Assocham has said.
"The default to be categorised as 'wilful' must be intentional, deliberate and calculated. Once it is established that the borrower intends to repay, the default cannot be deliberate," Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) secretary general D.S. Rawat said in a statement on Saturday night.
With excessive focus on the "wilful defaulters", the India Inc. is being projected in a bad light in the eye of the general public, whereas the fact remains that they contribute a large part to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employment generation, Rawat said.
In business cycles, "difficult times do come about. At times, the entrepreneurs face a crisis-like situation despite best of efforts," he said.
"With so much shrill noise on the 'wilful' defaulters, the banks and the government should take a dispassionate view of the case rather than being influenced by the media reports, which at times get exaggerated in the 'right-or-wrong' debate," the Assocham secretary general added.
In the case of Kingfisher Airlines and Mallya, "let there not be a media and public trial as such a thing is not good for the industry, banks or even the country's financial system," he said.
The main concern for the banks should be recovery of their assets, which have become non-performing assets (NPAs) and all genuine efforts must be made towards that end, the Assocham top official said.
"Whether Mr Mallya has done something right or wrong should be left to the law enforcement agencies and the courts. The banks must evaluate with open mind what offer is on the table," he said.
On the hindsight it does look as though the Indian industry, as was the case with the rest of the world, did over-step in expansions of capacities, stretching their balance sheets with high debts.
New Delhi, April 10 : Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari on Sunday expressed grief over the fire tragedy in a Kerala temple that killed nearly 100 people.
The vice president has conveyed his heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families. He wished speedy recovery to the injured, an official statement issued here said.
The tragedy occurred early on Sunday morning when a fireworks display caused a blaze at the temple in the coastal town of Paravur, about 60 km from Thiruvananthapuram.
Chennai, April 10 : Actor Pawan Kalyan has confirmed that he has been approached to star in the Telugu remake of Tamil blockbuster "Vedalam". He said that he has considered the project and it's on the cards.
"It's true that I've been approached with the offer. However, the script has to be tweaked for Telugu audiences and it's going to take some time. Currently, I can't confirm when the project will go on the floors," Kalyan told IANS.
"Vedalam", which featured Tamil superstar Ajith Kumar, was one of the biggest hits of last year.
Kalyan also has a project with filmmaker S.J Suryah in the pipeline.
"The official announcement will be made soon," he said.
The 44-year-old's latest Telugu release "Sardaar Gabbar Singh" is currently running in cinemas.
Kolkata, April 10 : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday expressed grief over the Kerala temple blaze in which some 100 people lost their lives early in the morning.
"Very sad news from Kerala. My deepest condolences to the families who lost their loved ones. Prayers for those injured," she tweeted.
Some 100 were killed on Sunday in a massive blaze caused by a fireworks display at the Puttingal temple in the coastal town of Paravur, located about 60 km from the state capital, Thiruvananthapuram.
Over 200 people have been injured.
New Delhi, April 10 : After decades of concern, the outlook of foreign entities over India's intellectual property rights regime (IPR) is beginning to turn positive, thanks to a realisation in the country that innovation will be meaningless without legal protection for creativity, say experts.
"One of the most powerful things being done in 50 years is on intellectual property rights. The new policy (under consideration) talks about encouraging innovation. We have seen in the last two years huge changes in our approach in this area," said Pravin Anand of law firm Anand and Anand.
Modernisation efforts at patent offices, amendment of rules to streamline procedures, recruitment of a large number of examiners to handle the volumes of patent applications and efforts to reduce backlog are positive changes in this domain, he said.
"If this kind of a policy continues at the same momentum at which it is proceeding, then it will hugely change the perspective of Western investors. If foreign players are assured that they are safe here, then who wouldn't want such a fantastic market (like India)?" Anand queried to IANS.
Corroborating this, Andrew Bradshaw, director, Asian Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy, said Western countries feel there has been a lot of difference in India's intellectual property rights protection after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's drive for a better regime.
"Since Modi took charge there is a lot of difference. I think it is a refreshing change. In the West, we can see that," Bradshaw, who is also global head brand protection, Superdry, told IANS.
He said law enforcement was equally important as India steps up the regime.
India's ranking globally on intellectual property has also not been encouraging.
According to the International Property Rights Index, published by the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation's Property Rights Alliance, India was ranked 62nd globally in 2015. India's score in 2015 was 5.2 -- lower than its score of 5.5 in 2014.
The report analysed the regimes of 129 nations, both on the legal and political environments.
Regarding enforcement, Anand said it was important to ensure that strong laws that the country has on protection of piracy and counterfeiting should be taken to their logical conclusion by way of implementation.
"All bottlenecks must be removed. Conviction rates must go up if people are counterfeiting. Also, statutory damages should be introduced and granted by all courts. Currently it is the Delhi High Court that grants damages. It should be in every district court," Anand said.
"Making laws is not sufficient unless customers are educated by way of policy and advocacy. We must have shelter of law first. Then policy document must be in place. Government support via dedicated enforcement agencies is also needed," Pulin Kumar, legal expert at Adidas group, told IANS.
On the low patent filings in the country, Anand said: "The government must send a message to all business houses that their chief executives should have a budget for filing patents and should make simple targets for patent filing."
He added: "If that happens then the abysmally low filing, which is around 45,000 applications for the whole country in a year, would increase dramatically."
China files around one million patent applications per year.
Echoing the same concern, Bradshaw said: "Education is very important, especially for newcomers in the business. Educate these new brands so that they protect their intellectual property from the beginning through trademarks and copyrights, designs and patents."
(Aparajita Gupta can be reached at aparajita.g@ians.in)
Tehran, April 10 : Iran will never negotiate over its missile programme as it is a matter of national defence, the country's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said here on Sunday.
The minister told a joint press conference with Estonian Foreign Minister Marina Kaljurand that the US knows the missile issue and defence capabilities of the Islamic republic are not open to negotiations, Xinhua reported.
If the US is serious about the arms, it is better to reconsider the sales of the weapons to some countries which use them against the Yemenis and the Palestinians, he said.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said the US was open to a "new arrangement" with Iran for resolving the issues pertaining to the country's missile programme.
Also, a senior Iranian military official dismissed on Friday the remarks of the top US diplomat on Iran's missile programme as "impudent".
Iran's deputy joint chief of staff of the armed forces, Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri, called on the country's foreign ministry to respond "firmly" to Kerry's calls for missile talks with Tehran.
"The missile power is non-negotiable, and for developing its defence capabilities Iran does not get permission from anybody," Jazayeri said.
The White House is critical of Iran's missile programme and deems it a threat to regional and world peace.
However, the Islamic republic said its missile programme is for peaceful purposes and no measure can strip the Islamic republic of its legitimate and legal rights to boost its defensive capabilities and to safeguard national security.
Kolkata, April 10 : Once unknown beyond their immediate circles of family, friends and colleagues, they became crusaders due to difficulties and sorrow they experienced at a personal level. They all are now busy plotting the downfall of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who in the very first place is "responsible" for their 'celebrity' status.
Among these fighters working against the Trinamool Congress chief and her party in the West Bengal assembly elections is a Jadhavpur University professor, a widow of a green activist, two housewives, and a farmer.
Dubbed as Maoists or arrested for circulating an innocuous spoof, they all faced Banerjee's wrath at one or the other point of time. Now, they say, they are fighting to "reclaim democracy snatched away by the despotic Trinamool regime".
Ambikesh Mahapatra was leading a normal life as a chemistry professor at the Jadavpur University till April 12, 2012, when his arrest for circulating a spoof on the chief minister made him a household name in West Bengal and elsewhere.
Contesting as an Independent, he is taking on city mayor and Trinamool heavyweight Sovan Chatterjee from Behala East.
Mahapatra openly admits he owes his popularity to Banerjee.
"It is a fact that people know me in India and even abroad because of Mamata. But this popularity is as much an advertisement of the despotic and tyrannical regime that has robbed the entire state of democracy," Mahapatra told IANS.
"It's neither a personal fight nor a move to seek revenge, but to give voice to many people like me who suffered or continue to do so at the hands of this government," says Mahapatra.
He has formed 'Aakranta Aamraa' (We the Victims), a forum of alleged victims of human rights violations and atrocities under Banerjee rule.
Undeterred by his strong adversary Chatterjee, who won the seat in 2011 by a wide margin, Mahapatra has been extensively using the social media to circulate spoofs and jokes revolving around a Narada TV sting operation allegedly showing several Trinamool leaders, including the mayor, taking bribes.
"It's a shame that the mayor's post, once occupied by luminaries like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, now has somebody who has no qualms in taking bundles of cash as bribe," says Mahapatra.
Besides Mahapatra, the forum has fielded Pratima Dutta, wife of murdered green activist Tapan Dutta, from Domjur in Howrah district.
Lending them support is Shiladitya Chowdhury, a farmer branded as a Maoist and thrown into jail for daring to question Banerjee in public about the rising fertiliser prices.
Till then a nondescript famer from Binpur in West Midnapore, people saw on their TV sets police dragging away Chowdhury after Mamata ordered "Oke dhorun... ekkhuni dhorun (catch him... catch him at once)" during a public meet in 2012.
With the case still pending against him, Chowdhury has been going around both Behala and Domjur constituencies, telling people about his miseries and urging them not to vote for the Trinamool.
"My life has been ruined; it's been four years and I still have to do the rounds of court. And I'm not alone. There are many others languishing in jails on false charges just because they opposed the Trinamool in some way or the other."
"The entire state should teach her a lesson by not casting even a single vote for Trinamool which is nothing but a symbol of torture and tyranny," Chowdhury told IANS.
Tumpa Koyal and Mousumi Koyal would perhaps have spent their lives as housewives in a little-known village Kamduni in North 24 Parganas, but for the gruesome gang rape and murder of their friend and their branding as Maoist, allegedly by Banerjee.
Joining forces with 'Akaranta Aamraa', the Koyals have been seeking speedy justice and capital punishment for the guilty. They have even knocked the doors of top political and constitutional authorities, including the president, demanding that the trial be expedited.
Due to their untiring efforts, three people were handed out death sentences and three others life imprisonment in the rape-murder case.
Though hesitant to join the electoral din, the Koyals say they fervently hope Mahapatra and Dutta emerge as winners.
"We don't want to get entangled in politics. Our fight was for justice to our friend whose life was brutally snuffed out. But yes, we wish to see a chief minister who is more concerned about women security," Tumpa told IANS.
Nodding in agreement, Mousumi said: "Mahapatra and Dutta will be the real public representatives. Unlike politicians, they are more like us who have gone through pains and difficulties in life."
And Mahapatra is not alone in his fight against Mamata Banerjee. Not only his "fellow victims" but almost the entire opposition - the Left Front, Congress and the BJP as well as civil society members - have unequivocally extended support to him and Dutta.
(Anurag Dey can be reached at anurag.d@ians.in)
Guwahati, April 10 : Over one crore voters will exercise their franchise in the second phase of polling in Assam for the 61 assembly seats on Monday and decide the fate of 525 candidates in the fray.
The polling will be held from 7 a.m. till 5 p.m. at 12,699 polling stations in the 61 constituencies spread across 13 districts.
Of the total 1,04,35,277 voters eligible to cast their ballot in the second phase, 50,44,051 are women. Of the 525 candidates in fray, only 48 are women.
Some prominent candidates include former Assam chief minister and Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) candidate Prafulla Kumar Mahanta (Barhampur), Moulana Badaruddin Ajmal (AIUDF, Salmara South), Agriculture Minister Rockybul Hussain (Congress, Samaguri), Himanta Biswa Sarma (BJP, Jalukbari) and former Assam BJP president Siddhartha Bhattacharyya (Guwahati East).
Among the 525 candidates, 57 are from the Congress, 47 from the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), 35 from the Bharatiya Janata Party BJP), 19 from the AGP, five from the Communist Party of India, nine from the Communist Party of India-Marxist, 10 from Bodoland Peoples Front, and 129 candidates from smaller or unregistered parties.
The Congress has fielded six women candidates, AIUDF two, BJP four, the CPI-M one and BPF one. Fifteen women nominees are from smaller and unregistered parties.
A total of 214 candidates, including 19 women, are contesting as Independents in various constituencies, poll officials said.
During the first phase of peaceful polling for 65 assembly constituencies on April 4, 82.20 percent of the eligible voters exercised their franchise.
London, April 10 : Having taken the English Premier League (EPL) by storm with his goal scoring exploits, Jamie Vardy has hit a dry patch of late, but Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri is confident that his team's title charge will not be affected.
Vardy has scored 19 goals this seaon and occupied the top spot in the scoring charts for several weeks. But the striker has not scored in his last six games for the Leicester and he has only netted four times for the EPL leaders since mid-December.
His only strikes last month came for England against Germany and Holland and he has only netted four times for the Barclays Premier League leaders since mid-December.
"Jamie in the last two or three matches he didn't score but made the final pass. I look always at the performance, if everybody links together and if everybody fights together. If everybody helps each other, that is my performance. After the goal, it's okay. If you imagine, Wes Morgan scored the goal (against Southampton)," Ranieri was quoted as saying by the Independent on Sunday.
"It's not important. Every time I talk to the strikers, it's not important if they score. Of course it's their job to score a goal."
Leicester currently sit at the top of the EPL standings with 69 points from 32 matches, seven points ahead of second placed Tottenham Hotspur. Despite Vardy's poor form in front of goal, Leicester have won their last four games 1-0 and Ranieri insisted the points are more important than any player's personal tally.
"It's not important who scores a goal. With (Danny) Simpson, no, last week he was so close? And I said to him 'don't worry, it will arrive next (week)'. It's not important who scores a goal. It's important that Leicester win the match," the 64-year-old Italian asserted.
Tehran, April 10 : Iran on Sunday dismissed as "baseless" US Secretary of State John Kerry's remarks on Iran's alleged support of terrorism.
"These remarks are so baseless that nobody in the world takes heed of them," Xinhua quoted Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif as saying in a joint press conference with visiting Estonian Foreign Minister Marina Kaljurand.
"The danger of terrorism and extremism, as the main risk threatening the region, is the result of the US occupation of and presence in Iraq over the past years," Zarif said.
Unfortunately, some regional states, which only think about their short-term interests, are also spreading the risk of extremism and the Islamic State (IS) in the region, he said, rejecting US allegations that Iran is destabilising the Middle East.
On Thursday, Kerry said in Bahrain that Iran should stop its destabilising behaviour in the Middle East and work with its neighbours to end the crises in Yemen and Syria.
Tehran, April 10 : Iran will not accept the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad before the next presidential elections in the country, a senior adviser to Iran's top leader was quoted as saying on Sunday.
"Iran believes that the government of Bashar al-Assad should remain in power until the end of his presidency term and the removal of Assad is a redline for us," Xinhua quoted Ali Akbar Velayati, the advisor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on international affairs, as saying.
Velayati dismissed the pressures on Assad's removal by the outsiders, saying that only the Syrian people can decide the future of their country.
The US authorities cannot tolerate Iran's influence in countries like Iraq and Syria, he said, adding: "At the request of these governments (Iraq and Syria), we support them against terrorists and it is none of Americans' business to say anything in this regard."
"Whether the Americans accept it or not, the time for their presence in the region is over," he said.
The US is behind the creation of terrorist groups such as the Islamic State in the region, he added.
Tehran has emerged as a staunch regional ally of Damascus in the country's long-running conflict, and has said that its military advisers provide assistance to Syria in its fight against terrorism.
Earlier this month, Iran said it had deployed ground force commandos in Syria for an advisory mission.
Other units of the Iranian army ground forces had also dispatched advisers to Syria, said Lieutenant Commander of the Iranian Army Ground Force for Coordination Brigadier General Ali Arasteh said.
Pune, April 10 : Charging Western nations with adopting double standards in their approach to climate change, Power Minister Piyush Goyal has said India file 16 cases against the US for giving protection to solar panel producers in violation of World Trade Oragnsiation (WTO) norms.
"The US, which is articulating the inconvenient truth, while India is doing convenient action, uses seven times more coal per capita than India. Even on clean energy finance, the developed world has spoken a lot and done zilch," Goyal said on Saturday evening at a lecture here jointly organized by the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce and Pune International Centre.
"I am going to file 16 cases against the US for their violation of the WTO norms. Our international solar alliance rests on this. If a large country like India is subjected to this, then imagine what happens to the country in the underdeveloped world," he said.
Declaring that American obstruction and pressures would not be acceptable to India, he said: "It amazes me that a country which talks of encouraging renewable energy goes to the WTO against India and says why did you put up 400 MW of domestically produced panels.
"You should have allowed us to compete even in those 400 MW, which India has domestically made and put up. They go to the WTO, win a case and tom tom about it as a contribution to renewable energy in the world," he said.
In the US, there are 16 programmes in different states giving protection to solar panel producers, which are completely in violation of WTO norms, Goyal added.
Calling the recently launched India-inspired International Solar Alliance a demonstration of India's concern for issues of climate change, he said the traditional ethos of conservation makes India a natural country to lead global efforts to tackle climate change.
At an International Finance Corporation event in New Delhi earlier this week, Goyal, who also holds the renewable energy portfolio, had urged the West to "show some magnanimity" and keep renewable energy out of the WTO framework.
"I don't see any reason why the West could not show some magnanimity and keep renewables out of the WTO framework, particularly when Indian manufacturers had such a large heart and had withdrawn the anti-dumping request, which had been ruled in their favour and could have imposed huge anti-dumping duties on the US," he said.
Urging industry here to adopt solar in the local rural and urban areas, Goyal said the cost of solar power is cheaper than that from conventional fossil fuels and the tariff remains same for 25 years.
Kolkata, April 10 : Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday ridiculed the Congress, saying it was only looking for piggyback rides on alliances to stay in existence.
In the city to campaign for the West Bengal assembly polls, the senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader ruled out as a contender, the party which has tied-up with the Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Front.
"So far as Congress is concnerned, nothing can be expected from them. Both their politics and policies are opportunistic. Battling for existence, they are looking for piggyback rides. In search of a few seats, they aligned with JD-U and RJD in Bihar, in Tamil Nadu with the DMK and in Bengal with the Left Front," he said.
Jaitley even said the Congress's ambitions have dipped so low that they are content being the "tail-enders".
"In its battle for survival, Congress is content playing the second or the third fiddle. The level of its own aspirations have come down, its level of ambitions is so low that it doesn't mind becoming the tail-ender of an alliance. Be it Bihar, Tamil Nadu or West Bengal, it is the tail-ender of the alliance," he said.
"Without any political or ideological stand, the Congress will never be a serious player," he said.
Charging the Left Front with "destroying Bengal" and accusing the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress of belying the people's expectations, Jaitley batted for his party to usher in development in the state.
Kuala Lumpur, April 10 : Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia, who beat world No.1 shuttler Chen Long of China to bag his 11th Malaysia Open title here on Sunday, is looking ahead to winning his first ever Olympic gold medal in Rio de Janeiro in August.
The 33-year-old had some tough time recently, after being eliminated from the All England Open and India Open in the first and second rounds, respectively, reports Xinhua.
Back home, the Malaysian fans gave their unwavering support to the two-time Olympic runner-up, who missed the last Malaysia Open due to a doping ban.
"Last two tournaments I was not playing well, somebody said Chong Wei was old and should retire," he said, "That's common, as an athlete I have to accept what people say.
"I would like to thank for the support and the trust from media and fans, this is one of my motivation to prepare for the Olympics in the next five months," he told a press conference.
"No matter how much the difficulties, this is the five months. I will try my best for the Olympics that I have waited for four years."
Chong Wei said he had promised to play until the Southeast Asian Games to be held in Malaysia next year, so this might be his last performance at the Malaysia Open.
He defeated Chen 21-13 and 21-8 in 42 minutes, extending his winning streak against the Chinese two-time reigning world champion to three games.
"I didn't expect a victory against Chen Long in two straight sets, and the second set I was leading by a wide margin," Chong Wei said after the match.
"Winning the first set gave me confidence which help me to forget the tiredness, so I can keep on attacking."
Despite losing the final on Sunday, Chen expressed his admiration toward Lee. "Keeping such a good form at this age would be a dream of every young players," he said.
Chen as well as Lin Dan, who defeated the Malaysian in the past two Olympic men's singles finals, will be the biggest opponents in Chong Wei's pursuit of the Olympic gold metal.
Both 27-year-old Chen and 32-year-old Lin have showed unstable forms recently, but Lee said he believed the Chinese shuttlers must have their own strategies.
"What's important is that I have my own strategy and be the best of myself," he said.
Panaji, April 10 : US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter on Sunday said that Indian and US interests overlap and the two democracies are working jointly to help secure the global environment.
"We have so many activities we are doing together to jointly to help secure this part of the world and other parts of the world," Carter told reporters on day one of his three-day visit to India.
Terming his visit to India "significant", Carter, who will hold talks with his Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday also said that India and US must work together to make the world safer for the generations to come.
"India, of course, has its own interests that it pursues, but our interests overlap in many important ways and where they do overlap, we must work together to make the world safer and make a safer world for our children," he said.
After his brief stopover in Goa, home state of Parrikar, Carter will head for the Indian naval base in Karwar, where he will be boarding the INS Vikramaditya aircraft carrier on Monday.
Guwahati, April 10 : The second phase of the Assam assembly elections on Monday will have at least two VVIP voters -- former prime minister Manmohan Singh and his wife Gurcharan Kaur.
The couple are voters in the Dispur constituency, and will cast their ballot at the Dispur Government High School polling station no.207 in Guwahati, a spokesman of the Assam unit of the Congress said on Sunday, Manmohan Singh and his wife will arrive at the Guwahati airport around 12.30 p.m. and will head directly to the polling station.
"They are likely to cast their votes around 1 p.m. After casting their votes, the couple will go to Brahmaputra State Guest House in Guwahati for some time and will return to Delhi around 5.30 p.m.," the spokesman said.
Manmohan Singh is enrolled in the electoral roll as voter no.570, Gurcharan Kaur is enrolled as voter no.571.
Manmohan Singh has been a member of the Rajya Sabha from Assam since 1991.
The then chief minister late Hiteswar Saikia offered him a Rajya Sabha seat from Assam when he became the finance minister in the Narasimha Rao government.
Saikia also made him a tenant in his house and Manmohan Singh's address in the electoral roll is mentioned as house no.3989 in Sarumataria area of Guwahati.
The second phase of polls on Monday involves 61 constituencies.
Polling for 65 constituencies took place on April 4 and recorded 83.20 percent turnout.
New Delhi, April 10 : A centre would soon be established to develop Indian sign language, and the government is "fully committed" to achieving empowerment and inclusion of disabled people, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said.
"My government is fully committed to the UN Convention of Rights for Persons with Disabilities, for achieving empowerment and inclusion of persons with disabilities," Modi said in his message ahead of the 9th World Assembly of the Disabled People's International (DPI) to be held on April 11-13 in New Delhi.
"The cost of exclusion of people with disability from the workforce is 3-7 percent of the GDP, as per World Bank estimates. Initiatives such as 'Accessibility India' campaign aim to male the built environment inclusive for persons with disabilities.
"We are also making Indian Railways accessible and starting a centre to develop Indian sign language," he said.
Thaawar Chand Gehlot, minister for social justice and empowerment, will address the plenary session of the event that is being supported by the UN and G3ICT.
G3ict or Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies is an advocacy initiative launched in December 2006 by the UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development, in cooperation with the Secretariat for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities at UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
In March 2016, the government's "Inclusiveness and Accessibility Index" -- that measured actions and attitudes of organisations towards disabled employees -- called for enabling access to them in buildings and workplaces, public transportation etc.
Javed Abidi, the global chair of DPI which has members from over 150 countries, said "rebuilding and retro-fitting to accommodate people with disability must be discouraged".
"Accessibility has to be built into both public and private sector procurement. Otherwise the disabled people cannot even get education, let alone employment," he said.
Over 70 DPI representatives from all over the world would speak at the event -- including Yuri Afanasiev, UN resident coordinator and UNDP resident representative in India, Yes Bank managing director and CEO Rana Kapoor, and American India Foundation country director Nishant Pandey.
The theme of the three-day event is "Building Human Capital: Realizing SDGs for Persons with Disabilities".
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by the UN in September 2015. The 17 goals and 169 targets aim to eradicate extreme poverty, among others. There are 11 mentions of disability in the entire document but none in the most crucial goals.
The discussion will focus on a disability inclusive blueprint for Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.
New Delhi, April 10 : As China continues to increase its engagement with Maldives, the Indian Ocean archipelago nation's President Abdulla Yameen arrived in India on Sunday on a two-day bilateral visit.
"A maritime neighbour comes calling! President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom of Maldives arrives on an official visit," external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup tweeted.
Yameen is being accompanied by Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon, Fisheries and Agriculture Minister Mohamed Shainee and three members of the Maldivian parliament.
In Delhi, President Yameen will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi over a working lunch on Monday. A number of significant MoUs are expected to be signed during the meeting.
Yameen, who had come to India on a bilateral visit in January 2014 and was among the South Asian leaders who attending the Modi government's swearing-in in May 2014, would also call on President Pranab Mukherjee on April 11, according to Swarup.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj would call on him on the morning of April 11. She had met her Maldivian counterpart in Nepal on the sidelines of a South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation meet last month.
Though India and Maldives completed 50 years of diplomatic ties last year and the two countries historically enjoyed a close relationship, Yameen's visit assumes significance because of New Delhi's discomfiture over China's increasing investments and influence in the Indian Ocean region.
Former Maldivian president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who was in New Delhi last month to deliver a lecture, said that his country found business and investment proposals from China more attractive.
"We have said so many times, businessmen from India are welcome, as business from other countries like Russia, China," he said.
Sushma Swaraj visited Maldives in November 2014 and again in October 2015 for the India-Maldives joint commission meeting, which was held after 15 years.
This year, ministerial delegations to India, led by the country's foreign minister, defence minister, tourism minister, and foreign secretary "have further strengthened bilateral ties between India and Maldives", said a Maldives high commission statement.
India has sought to deepen its relations with the Yameen dispensation following unease in ties that had crept in after New Delhi was seen backing former president Mohamed Nasheed. India had voiced concern over his prolonged incarceration, and Prime Minister Modi had also cancelled a visit to Male earlier.
Kolkata, April 10 : Dubbing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as the head of "syndicate", the Congress on Sunday said that was the prime reason she could not take action against party leaders and MPs accused of indulging in corruption.
The Trinamool Congress hit back, wondering whether the words of Congress leaders carry any weight after they have sold their flags to those (read the CPI-M) who accused then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi of accepting kickbacks in the Bofors gun deal.
Addressing the media, Congress spokesman Anand Sharma said the multi-crore-rupee Saradha chit fund scam was a reality, and a minister belonging to the Trinamool has landed in jail.
Refering to the purported sting operation by the Narada News portal, Sharma said: "Their MPs have been seen... They have been caught on camera.
"But Mamata has taken no action against that. That's because she is the head of the syndicate. How can she then take action against her corrupt ministers and members of parliament?" he asked.
Sharma also dismissed as a "joke" and an "insult to the people" the Trinamool Congress's announcement that it would hold an internal inquiry on the Narada sting issue.
"The offer of having an internal probe is an insult to the wisdom of the voters of Bengal. It is a joke perpetrated on the people."
He also rejected the Trinamool's assertion that the probe will also look into the role of people like senior Congress leader Ahmad Patel.
"It is an accusation. It is without any substance. And I reject it with contempt that it deserves. They are in the dock. They have been caught on the camera," Sharma said.
Trinamool secretary general Partha Chatterjee said: "The so-called syndicate head Mamata Banerjee lives in a 6-feet by 6-feet room. What is the use of saying all these?"
He ridiculed the Congress for forging an alliance with the CPI-M led Left Front.
"They have sold their (Congress) flag to those who accused Rajiv Gandhi of having accepted kickbacks from Bofors. They have formed an alliance with those who called Indira Gandhi a witch. Do their words carry any weight?" Chatterjee wondered.
Father & Son Analogy for the Human Brain Many mental phenomena will remain a mystery unless science considers the duality suggested by the Dichotomized Operating System, the operating system of the brain.
The approach has led to the development of the Dichotomized Operating System model (or DOS model), a functional model of the mind, which reveals that the left and right hemispheres in a typical human brain work as a team to reach common goals by processing information in direct and contextual manners respectively, as explained by the analogy below:
Father and Son analogy: A son is guided by his father as he drives a car to reach a destination. The son thinks logically and executes actions efficiently, as he is young and physically fit. He avoids other cars, people crossing roads, etc. and follows traffic lights, diversions, dividers, etc. on his ownbut consults his old father, who is not as physically capable or as quick and strong in logical processing as his sonbut possesses wisdom derived from decades of experience of driving on city roads for traffic trends, dangers, shortcuts, etc.which would help him choose the best path to take to reach the destination.
As per the analogy, the way the son avoids other cars, people crossing roads, etc. and follows traffic lights, diversions, etc. on his own, the left hemisphere executes such repetitive, preset and rule based tasks on its ownwhich is the basis of unconscious processing in the brain. In the way the son consults his father for navigation, the left hemisphere consults the right hemisphere when new judgements are to be made on how to interact further, which provides guidance using past data stored in its databasewhich is the basis of conscious processing in the brain.
Using such duality, the model reveals for the first time the reason behind the decades-old belief that the left hemisphere is involved in logical, analytical, factual, detail oriented, etc. processing, and the right hemisphere is involved in holistic, creative, emotional, subjective, artistic, imaginative, etc. processing. There are, however, a growing number of scientists who reject such duality (more on the mini site http://www.BrainDuality.com).
Science will not be able to understand the mechanisms underlying phenomena like emotions, sleep, dreams, creativity, music, humour, love, sex, art, etc. without accepting the duality of brain operations suggested by the model, as it plays a major role in all such phenomena. As a matter of fact, such duality is the reason the brain has two hemispheres, says Jasani, the developer of the DOS model (more on the link http://www.whatismind.com/#DOSModel).
Take the thought process for example, he adds. The process of thinking is one of the most ubiquitous phenomena in all of mankind. All human actions and accomplishments are a direct result of the thought process. In spite of that, modern science has no clue as to how thoughts and language are generated from neural communications in the brain. The reason modern science has no clue is that communication between hemispheres, which is the birthplace of all verbal and non-verbal communication, is not taken into consideration. Using such duality, I have explained the process of thinking in full detail, which is the first and only explanation available today of how the thought process works (more on the mini site http://www.ThinkingExplained.com).
The model also explains the mechanisms underlying sensations, perception, awareness, attention, decision making, pain, hunger, multitasking, heredity, subjective experiences, consciousness (more on the mini site http://www.ConsciousnessExplained.com), etc. and is supported by the observations and findings of experts in the field like Francis Crick, Daniel Kahneman, Roger Sperry, Michael Gazzaniga, Simon Baron-Cohen, Christof Koch, Stanislas Dehaene, Malcolm Gladwell, Iain McGilchrist, Uta Frith, etc., including William James, who is often considered the father of American psychology.
According to Jasani, due to its causal approach, incorporating the model with neuroscience can, besides saving time, effort and energy, save billions of dollars currently being spent on projects like the Human Brain Project, BRAIN Initiative, etc. while benefiting mankind to levels not imagined before (more on the link http://www.whatismind.com/CASRC.aspx).
He concludes, Even with exponentially growing technology, many mental phenomena will remain a mystery unless science considers the duality suggested by the Dichotomized Operating System, the operating system of the brain.
DOS model is available on the website http://www.WhatisMind.com.
About DOS Labs: DOS Labs is a Mumbai, India-based company founded by Parag Jasani with the purpose of expanding into research and training based on the Dichotomized Operating System model.
A future-proof POS technology platform designed for businesses to address the challenges and opportunities with multiple brands, multiple retail formats, multiple languages, and multiple currencies.
With TCPOS POS solution, Macro will extend their solutions and services offerings that they have provided for decades to the retail market. TCPOS.net POS solution offering will allow Macro to address businesses that have complex corporate processes, conglomerates with multiple brands and retail format challenges, Omni-channel strategies, as well as extend their software offering into hospitality market segment.
Now, Macro will be able to provide a cloud-based hybrid POS solution with offline capabilities that can be centrally managed. The solution provides a POS framework that allows our customers to build their own functional plugins, says Bart Collins, VP Sales and Marketing, Partner.
It is great to partner with a company that has strong business morals and a long-term commitment to their customers and the market they serve, says David Thomas, Managing Director, TCPOS North America.
About Macro Integration Services Inc.
Macro Integration Services was established to serve the systems and services needs of premier grocers, retailers, hospitality companies, and other customer transaction based businesses with multiple locations and sophisticated systems. Our retail, technical expertise and experience help separate our customers from their competition by providing and implementing state of the art technology on time and on budget.
About TCPOS North America Inc.
TCPOS North America Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of TCPOS SA, is a leading global provider of POS software solutions to hospitality and retail businesses. With offices in US and Canada, TCPOS future-proof POS technology platform is designed for businesses to address the challenges and opportunities of multiple brands, multiple retail formats, multiple languages, and multiple currencies. The only true POS solution on the market that addresses these opportunities in a single platform and a POS architecture that enables Omni-channel retail deployments. More than 10,000 customers all over the world trust TCPOS solutions and our extensible architecture and design philosophy.
Following up his debut 'Metropolitan', Whit Stillman's 'Barcelona' is the second in his Doomed-Bourgeois-in-Love trilogy, which would be followed up four years later by 'The Last Days of Disco', all of which are now available from the Criterion Collection with this release, individually or in a set.
Set in Barcelona, Spain, during the '80s as the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union waned, the story focuses on two American cousins, Ted (Taylor Nichols) and Fred Boyton (Chris Eigemen). Ted is a car-company executive who has been living in Barcelona. Fred is a Navy officer working as an advance man for the arrival of the Sixth Fleet. He shows up unannounced on Ted's doorstep looking for a place to stay.
Although living abroad certainly has romantic connotations, the ideal is not the reality. Ted is insecure about keeping his job and about himself after a recent break-up. He has an idealized version of love and romance, assuming profound emotional bonds are required of all women before they enter into sexual relationships. He resolves to go out with plain or rather homely girls because he has had trouble with beautiful women.
Of course, his position doesn't last long as he starts a relationship with the attractive Monsterrat (Tushka Bergen). After sleeping together, he learns she is in an open relationship with a journalist named Ramon (Pep Munne), who can't have sex with a woman once he knows her well. Things seem to be progressing until they come to an abrupt stop.
Fred has his own conflicts as well, which also involve Ramon. Some of the locals are not pleased with NATO or the U.S. yet Fred frequently wears his uniform about the town. After a bombing at the USO building, resulting in the death of a sailor, Ramon says it was a false flag operation by the Americans. He goes further and writes that Fred is a CIA operative.
'Barcelona' begins as a comedy of manners with Ted and Fred engaging in funny banter as they try to make sense of life, love, and relationships. While it's already tough enough for young men to understand young women, their American sensibilities seem to complicate matters as they try and connect with Spanish women.
In the third act, the plot takes a very dark turn, and even though the tone changes abruptly, Stillman is able to guide the characters and the story in a way that seems authentic to what has gone before.
The Blu-ray: Vital Disc Stats
'Barcelona' (#807 in The Criterion Collection) comes on a 50GB Region A Blu-ray disc in a clear keepcase. The discs boot up directly to the menu screen without any promotional advertisements. Included is a folded leaflet containing the essay "Innocence Abroad," an essay by film scholar Haden Guest.
In his short keynote speech at the 2016 International Publishers Congress in London, Hachette CEO Arnaud Nourry opened on an optimistic note.
Books have proven, again, their staying power in the face of the social, economic and technological transformations that have affected the world since books were invented 560 years ago, he said, adding that publishers are the only media industry to have successfully ridden the first digital wave.
But Nourry also acknowledged serious clouds on the horizon, and threats that will have to be dealt with. First and foremost among those threats: what Nourry called the European Commissions senseless attack on copyright.
Vast exceptions to copyright law for libraries, for education, for fair usethink of the devastating consequences they would have on European publishers if they were allowed to pass, Nourry said. It is as if the Commission had made it a priority to weaken the only European cultural industry that has achieved worldwide leadership.
Nourry assailed tech industries that are building audiences or e-retailing capacity by using our catalogs and front lists as loss-making, free products. And he suggested that Google was the player the most likely to pose a clear and present danger to our industry, because of its effort to scan library books.
If the European Commission caves in to the demands of their proxies, whats to stop them from defining themselves as a library and making all those books available for free on a non-profit basis? He asked. They could claim their profit derives from advertising, not from charging browsers an access fee. And whos to stop them if the European Commission, no less, has given them its blessing?
Notably, In 2009, a French court sided with publisher La Martiniere, finding that Google's scanning had violated French copyright law, and in 2012 publishers in France settled with Google. Meanwhile, in the U.S., Google has prevailed, as the courts have found that their scanning is protected by fair use. A suit filed by the Authors Guild in 2005 is now on its last appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nourry concluded that defeating the European Commissions plans must be the number one priority for the IPA, recalling that the IPA as an institution was founded to enforce international copyright laws. Copyright protection, he stressed, is the IPAs core mission.
Nourry then turned his attention to freedom to publish, and questioned the IPAs decision to admit China as a member last year, noting some disturbing developments in recent months.
Nourry specifically called out IPA president Richard Charkin for his support of Chinas membership.
Richard, I hope you knew what you were doing when you supported the Publishers Association of Chinas application to become members of the IPA in Frankfurt last year. It was a generous and optimistic initiative, he said. I just hope well still be comfortable with it in the months and years to come.
In a short Q&A period, there was a tense moment, as a member of the Chinese delegation chided Nourry for his comments.
Nourry responded that Chinas IPA membership "was great news, because we all within the IPA share the same values, the freedom to publish and the freedom to express opinions, and I take it as a great sign that China wanted to be a member of the IPA."
The 31st International Publishers Congress runs from April 9-12 at the Olympia in London, preceding the London Book Fair, which kicks off on Tuesday, April 12.
Richard W. Motz, 86, of Rock Island, died Jan. 7, 2016, at UnityPoint Health-Trinity Rock Island.
A celebration of Mr. Motz's life will be held on Saturday, April 16, at Two Rivers United Methodist Church, 1820 5th Ave., Rock Island. Visitation will be from 9 to 10 a.m., with the memorial service to follow at 10. Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home and Crematory is assisting the family. The body has been donated to the Department of Anatomy at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be to the Development Association of Rock Island, United Way of the Quad Cities Area or Two Rivers United Methodist Church.
He was born in Rock Island on Dec. 6, 1929, and was educated in Rock Island public schools. He earned a bachelor's degree from Northwestern University School of Business and also attended Naval Officer's Candidate School.
He was the son of Rock Island dentist Charles W. Motz and Marjorie Walker Motz. In 1952, he married Ruth Marie Sloan, who had grown up in Sioux City, Iowa, and later taught school in Brooklyn and Davenport. She preceded him in death, as did a mentally handicapped son, Steven, who died at the age of 25.
Surviving is their daughter, Nancy (Steve) Horrell, who retired after having taught for more than three decades for the Highland (Illinois) School District. They have two grown children, Daniel and Katie Horrell, and two grandchildren, Bentley and Hensley Horrell. His brother, Robert W. Motz, resides in Rock Island with his wife, Katie Steinke.
The Motzes spent their lives in Rock Island except for several years during the Korean War when they lived on the island of Guam and at Great Lakes Naval Training Center.
Richard Motz spent his entire working career in the real estate and insurance business. He joined the business in 1951 with his uncle, Ray Walker. The firm, founded by Mr. Motz's grandfather Walker in 1902, later changed its name to Oakwood Realty.
Mr. Motz co-developed a subdivision and built several houses that he designed for sale. He later found his niche in office buildings, starting with the Safety Building in 1965 and the Cleveland Building (now the Plaza Office Building) in 1975. Because this was at a time when the downtown area was in decline, citizens credit him with being a key player in the eventual revitalization of downtown Rock Island and the preservation of historic buildings.
His leadership roles included serving as president or chairman of the Rock Island Association of Insurance Agents, Rock Island Board of Realtors, board of trustees and administrative board of First United Methodist Church (now Two Rivers United Methodist Church), Rock Island Downtown Council, Downtown 2000 Steering Committee, Rock Island Community Chest and United Way of Rock Island County. He played a key role in the merging of the United Ways on the Illinois side of the river and then on both sides. He was one of the founders of the Development Association of Rock Island (DARI).
Honors bestowed on him include being the first to receive the Rock Island awards as Realtor of the Year, Citizen of the Year and the traveling trophy for The Most Faithful to his Community. He was a recipient of the Rotary Club's award for Distinguished Community Service.
He was an avid boater on his own boats and in traveling on commercial boats throughout the U.S., Canada and European waterways. His death ensures the inception of a trust created by Mr. and Mrs. Motz to provide annual support to his survivors, his church and his community.
Online condolences may be left at wheelanpressly.com.
The nation sees its giant neighbour -- and largest trading partner -- as its biggest foreign policy preoccupation, with border wars and controversial China-backed mega-projects topping the agenda.
The new civilian administration, sworn in on March 30, faces a host of economic challenges as it inherits the government of the impoverished nation from the military.
It also faces tensions with the military which ruled for almost half a century.
Suu Kyi, for decades the standard-bearer of the democracy movement and now foreign minister, invited China's Wang Yi for talks in the capital Naypyidaw.
At a press conference afterwards she described relations as "very important politically as well as socially and economically".
Wang said his government was eager to "build more confidence" between the nations and vowed that China would support Myanmar's process of national reconciliation.
"China is a good neighbour to Myanmar. We want to improve the relationship between the two countries," he said through an interpreter.
Beijing was once instrumental in shielding Myanmar's former junta from the full force of international opprobrium while Suu Kyi languished for years under house arrest.
Chinese firms enjoyed a host of juicy business deals with Myanmar's generals and their cronies that were often seen as exploiting the nation's rich natural resources.
But the comfortable relationship was thrown into upheaval under the last quasi-civilian government of Thein Sein.
In 2011 he shocked the international community by suspending the multi-billion dollar China-backed Myitsone hydropower project in war-torn Kachin state.
Fighting in the border region of Kokang last year between the Myanmar army and local rebels with links to China also strained relations.
Analysts say both nations want to rebalance the relationship after Myanmar's historic November elections that saw millions of voters take to the polls to end the military's domination.
"The new government recognises China's importance but will also be keen to recalibrate aspects of the two countries' relations," said Nyantha Maw Lin, of advisory firm Vriens and Partners.
- Huge investor -With a cumulative total of $15.4 billion of approved investments in Myanmar, China is by far its largest foreign investor, despite reforms in recent years that have seen Western firms surge back.
Its interests range from a huge oil and gas pipeline and special economic zone, to dams and mining. Chinese firms have continued to win major contracts in recent months.
The two countries share a long border, along parts of which ethnic minority rebel groups are fighting Myanmar's government. The frontier also sees huge flows of illicit timber, drugs and jade flood north from Myanmar.
Yun Sun from the Stimson Center's East Asia Program said discussions were likely to focus on China's role in Myanmar's peace process as well as in its economic development.
Suu Kyi, who met President Xi Jinping during a visit to Beijing last June, has shown a pragmatic streak in dealing with Chinese interests.
But in a rare sign of pushback, a top party economic adviser in March said the incoming government could rethink the Myitsone project despite China's eagerness to see it restarted.
The meeting between Suu Kyi and her Chinese counterpart comes amid growing tension between her party and the military.
Suu Kyi is barred from the presidency by the junta-era constitution. But her National League for Democracy party wants to push a bill through parliament that would give her the vaguely defined new role of state special adviser.
Army MPs, who make up a quarter of the legislature, slammed the bill at a dramatic lower house hearing Tuesday that saw the uniformed soldiers refuse to vote. They stood in protest when their attempts at amendments were swatted away by the NLD, which holds a majority.
"It is difficult for the military representatives to continue participating if (the bill) is voted through without review," military MP Brigadier General Maung Maung told the chamber.
The bill needs only one more vote in the combined parliament to pass.
Symply has come out of stealth mode, to specialise in complex rich-media storage.
An employee-owned storage design company with locations in Los Angeles, New York and London, Symply designs, engineers and supports storage solutions, working closely on development and production with technology partner Promise Technology."Symply is a different kind of startup. We started with a well-defined goal and product direction, and then brought together a team of proven experts to deliver real storage solutions to the most pressing problems that creative teams face today; and we do it in a new, innovative way," explained Alex Grossman, CEO of Symply In addition to Symply products, Symply has assumed all sales and field engineering responsibilities for Promise Technology's current rich-media product line throughout the Americas, the UK, France and Germany. Promise Technology will cover sales and support for rich media product lines in all other world regions."This partnership is the dream team of talent for creating rich media storage," said James Lee, CEO of Promise Technology. "The executives at Symply aren't just experienced in the category; they helped create it. They have great vision about what the rich media market needs and the future technical direction. We're absolutely thrilled to team up. The ultimate winner is anyone working with video."
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5 ACRES HUGE RANCH PROPERTY IN INYO COUNTY CALIFORNIA This HUGE Property is beside North Haiwee Reservoir it is a reservoir located just 26.6 miles from Lone Pine, in Inyo County, in the state of California, United States, near Grant, CA. Whether youre spinning, bait casting or fly fishing your chances of getting a bite here are good. So grab your favorite fly fishing rod and reel, and head out to North Haiwee Reservoir. The Big Reservoir its been closed. A security assessment conducted by...
Price: $ 4,050 Seller State of Residence: California Location: 928**, Orange, California
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Welcome to the of Twentynine Palms FIVE ACRES Short Drive to Palm Springs No Minimum / No Reserve High Bid Owns the Property THE AREA: The lot for sale is located in the City of Twentynine Palms in San Bernardino County in Southen California just a short one hour drive from Los Angeles and minutes from Palm Springs and the resort area of Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear Lake. Palm Springs, located just 30 miles southwest is a preferred destination of travelers from all over the world. Nestled at the ...
Price: $ 2,525 Seller State of Residence: Florida Property Address: Pole Line Road Type: Homesite, Lot Zoning: Residential Location: , Twentynine Palms, California
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In late March, the Philippine Commission on Elections website was defaced in an Anonymous op, and a few days later, Lulzsec Pilipinas dumped its voter database. At the time, the Commission claimed that no sensitive information was exposed in the breach, but that is clearly not the case.
The breach contains the records of 1.3m overseas Philippines voters, including their passport details; it also includes 15.8m fingerprints.
The Anonymous defacement op criticized the commission for its lax security and called on it to improve its operations prior to the May 9 elections.
"Our research showed that massive records of PII, including fingerprints data were leaked. Included in the data COMELEC deemed public was a list of COMELEC officials that have admin accounts," the firm said in a blog post. "Based on our investigation, the data dumps include 1.3 million records of overseas Filipino voters, which included passport numbers and expiry dates. What is alarming is that this crucial data is just in plain text and accessible to everyone. Interestingly, we also found a whopping 15.8 million records of fingerprints and a list of people running for office since the 2010 elections."
Data Protection Mishap Leaves 55M Philippine Voters at Risk
[Trend Micro]
Every Voter in Philippines Exposed in Mega Hack
[Phil Muncaster/Infosecurity]
(via Gizmodo)
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Vacant Land in Mobile, Mobile County, Alabama! Item Id: Richardson01 Case Name: Richardson, John & Rhonda Case Number: 14 02675 Trustee: Description: Estate's interest in 0.17 acres of vacant land in Mobile, Alabama near Ladd-Peebles Stadium. The property is located at 605 Rickarby Street, Mobile, AL 36606. The status of water, power, sewer and utilities is unknown. The APN# is R022910282005027 and the Account # is 926467. The legal description is 'Lot 13 Blk 3 Rickarby Place DBK 116P208 #Sec 28...
Price: $ 999 Seller State of Residence: Alabama Property Address: 605 Rickarby Street City: Mobile Type: Homesite, Lot Zoning: Residential Zip/Postal Code: 36606 Location: 366**, Mobile, Alabama
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NYC real estate had been greatly impacted by the release of the Panama Papers. The leak revealed millions of documents from the illegal offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca. It had already led to the resignation of the Prime Minister of Iceland, and had revealed the shady offshore transactions of the likes of Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharif and the Russian President Vladmir Putin.
An analysis of another set of files released by the ICJI had revealed at least five companies with NYC connections. They were Stonehenge Partners, the Witkoff Group, Hiro Real Estate, M1 Real Estate, some members of the Nakash Family, and New York Wheel project investor. NYC real estate group Witkoff's most well-known projects included the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel, the 91-unit West Village condominium at 150 Charles Street, and the Woolworth Building on Madison Square West. Stonehenge Partners managed over 3,000 units across the city, according to a feature from NY Curbed.
The Panama Papers were released when an anonymous source gave away the data to German publication Suddeutsche Zeitung a few years ago. The paper shared the information with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists which subsequently sent the information to various major publications.
The Panama papers, also popular by the name Offshore Leaks Database, documented at least 30 years of transactions, all related to two offshore fund leaks. These leaks are from Commonwealth Trust Limited, a British Virgin Islands company, and Portcullis TrustNet located in Singapore. Both of these corporations specialize in improving the wealthy's assets through setting up secret accounts and offshore entities, according to a feature from The Real Deal.
Doing business offshore is legal. While the entities involved in the leak are often used to evade international sanctions, evade taxes, and hide assets, there legitimate reasons why maintaining one is beneficial. on top of all legal reasons, investment diversification, personal and private estate planning, and legal tax exemption are the most popular.
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.
The race is on.
Who will it be? Redding or Chico? Which community will get the North State's first Dunkin' Donuts?
Doughnut fans are fired up with last week's news that Dunkin' Donuts wants to open 10 new stores over the next few years in Redding, Chico, Yreka and Eureka part of the doughnut giant's plans to open nearly 30 new locations in California.
Locally, there hasn't been this much buzz since Krispy Kreme, the once darling of the doughnut world, was going to build a store on Dana Drive in Redding in 2004. Krispy Kreme backed off of those plans and today the location, between Outback Steakhouse and Chase Bank, is a Panda Express.
I got the chance last week to speak over the phone with Patrick Cunningham, senior director of franchising of Dunkin' Brands Inc., and Michael Sessler, who's with Far North Ventures, the franchisee that will develop and operate Dunkin' Donut stores in the North State.
Sessler told me that right now the plan is to open locations in Redding and Chico first before going farther north. And like Krispy Kreme, Far North is thinking Chico first. That location would open in 2017.
"The first two or three would be in Chico and Redding," Sessler said. "We were just up there last Friday (April 1) and looked at a couple of locations in Chico."
Chico also got the first Trader Joe's, the first Panera Bread and the first Buffalo Wild Wings. Redding is still waiting for the latter two chains to arrive.
Sessler's group has some investors in the Chico-Redding area, so they are familiar with the market and like the fact it's along the Interstate 5 corridor and believe the area is ripe for franchise growth.
The group is no stranger to food chains. They also own Zpizza, a Newport Beach-based chain with about 100 locations, including restaurants in the greater Sacramento area.
As for what a Dunkin' Donuts might look like, Cunningham said they would like a drive-through. The store could be a stand-alone building or part of a shopping center.
"But as we enter an area, we want to seek that free-standing store with a drive-through," Cunningham said.
On average, Dunkin' Donuts stores employ 20 people.
Meanwhile, Michael Garrett, who co-owns Heavenly Donuts in Redding and has been in the business for more than 25 years, welcomes the arrival of Dunkin' Donuts.
"Competition always makes you better," Garrett said.
Garrett and his brother, Roger, opened Winchell's Donuts in 1989, and in 2002 they purchased more locations in the Pacific Northwest. Two years later, Winchell's was sold to Yum Yum Donuts. The changed disappointed the Garretts, so they cut ties with the franchise and rebranded their shops as Heavenly Donuts in 2008. It also was a way to keep the franchise fees they were paying local, Michael Garrett said.
They also have two locations in Portland, Oregon; and shops in Gladstone, Oregon; Lacey, Washington; and Longview, Washington.
The Garretts remodeled their Redding store at Shasta and Pine streets about a year ago.
"We remodeled in anticipation of Krispy Kreme coming to town; Dunkin' Donuts coming to town, we knew that was eventually going to happen. So we put more money into our stores," Michael Garrett said.
MINIMUM WAGE
Dunkin' Donuts has had its eye on the California market and planning for its ambitious expansion for years.
So the fact last week's announcement by Dunkin' that it will open nearly 30 new locations in California over the next few years with an ultimate goal of opening more than 1,000 came on the same day Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation raising the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022 was coincidence.
Still, when I spoke with Patrick Cunningham, of Dunkin' Brands, and Michael Sessler, of Far North Ventures, the franchisee that will open Dunkin' stores in the North State, I asked them if the pay hike will affect their plans.
Cunningham, as the company's director of franchising, said that is not an area he gets involved with, so he did not have an answer.
Sessler, though, said minimum wage, of course, impacts everybody in the service industry, where many minimum-wage jobs are plentiful. But he is still bullish on the Golden State.
"It has impacted us more from an operational perspective," Sessler said. "We have to work on our efficiencies. We have to provide good service and food quality without adding any additional labor. We just have to be very mindful about some of the systems we put in place and some operational decisions."
UNCORKING A LEGACY
Moseley Family Cellars last weekend uncorked its first of what it hopes is many legacy release wines.
The family-owned winery honored Chris and Erin Resner, who own the Dutch Bros. kiosks in Redding, Palo Cedro and Anderson, by naming its first special release after the family. The Resners and their two children were at the winery last Sunday to celebrate the release, a 2008 cabernet sauvignon.
"Dutch Bros. gives so much to the community. Any time anybody asks them for anything, the answer is always yes," Moseley Family Cellars co-owner Mimi Moseley said. "They have been in the past and they will be in the future such a great example for hundreds of people. Some of the nicest kids in Redding work for Dutch Bros."
Chris Resner told me his family is humbled.
"It is such an honor because we feel the Moseleys, in of themselves, they are pillars in our community and they really have a heart for our community," he said. "For them to acknowledge us, we thought it was a pretty cool honor.
"It's a privilege to have the first legacy release named after our family."
The wine is made from Napa Valley grapes. The winery produced 300 bottles that sell for $100 apiece.
Moseley Family Cellars is at 4712 Mountain Lakes Blvd. in North Redding. Go to moseleyfamilycellars.com for more information.
THE BUSINESS OF POLITICS
If you follow Matt Doyle, general manager at Lake Shasta Caverns, on Facebook, you saw his recent post. And it sounds like Doyle has political ambitions.
Sure enough, Doyle told me last week that he wants to make a run in 2018 for District 1 State Assembly, a seat currently held by Brian Dahle.
I spoke to Doyle at last week's Shasta Cascade Wonderland Association Tourism Summit. He's frustrated and upset because he thinks politicians are ignoring small businesses.
"I have no say in it," Doyle said. "Where was my voice in the minimum wage?"
The post was a trial balloon and Doyle is encouraged by the feedback.
"I was surprised by the resounding support I received," Doyle said.
Stay tuned.
Reporter David Benda can be reached at 225-8219 or david.benda@redding.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidBenda_RS.
SHARE This photo provided by George Mason & Salli Slaughter shows Jim Harrison at his home in Patgonia, Ariz. Harrison, the fiction writer, poet, outdoorsman and reveler who wrote with gruff affection for the country's landscape and rural life and enjoyed mainstream success in middle age with his historical saga "Legends of the Fall," died Saturday, March 26, 2016. He was 78. (George Mason & Salli Slaughter/Courtesy of The Authors Road via AP)
By The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) Here are some things to know about Jim Harrison, who died Saturday at age 78:
PROLIFIC WRITER
He wrote nearly 40 books, most famously "Legends of the Fall," and was an accomplished fiction writer, poet and essayist. Besides "Legends of the Fall," a collection of three novellas, his books included the novels "Dalva" and "The Big Seven" and the poetry collection "Plain Song."
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FAMOUS FRIENDS
His author friends included Tom McGuane and Phil Caputo, and he was close to Jack Nicholson, whose loan of $15,000 enabled him to finish "Legends of the Fall." He met Nicholson through McGuane, who wrote the screenplay for the 1976 Nicholson-Marlon Brando movie "The Missouri Breaks." Others he met in Hollywood included Warren Beatty, Sean Connery and Orson Welles.
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ENDLESSLY QUOTABLE
He lived hard and was endlessly quotable, beginning his poem "Barking" with the lines: The moon comes up/The moon goes down/This is to inform you/that I didn't die young." A sign outside his farm in Michigan read: "DO NOT ENTER THIS DRIVEWAY UNLESS YOU HAVE CALLED FIRST. THIS MEANS YOU."
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BEARDED AND BURLY
Fans knew him not just for his bulky physique and copious facial hair but for his blind left eye, injured at age 7 when a neighborhood girl jammed a bottle in his face. He joked that some mistook him for Nicholson's bodyguard. A Paris Review story from 1988 noted he also had been likened to a beer salesman and a sumo wrestler.
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HOLLYWOOD CREDITS
His screenplay credits included the film version of "Legends of the Fall," which starred Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins. While working on movies, he reminded himself of his marginal status in Hollywood by inscribing a putdown from an executive, "You're just a writer," on a piece of paper and taping it above his desk.
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By KRYSTA FAURIA, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) The coffee obsession has reached a new peak: You can now know the altitude at which the beans used for your morning cup of java were grown.
Spurred by the popularity of boutique coffee purveyors, Starbucks and other chains are taking steps to appeal to the growing ranks of coffee aficionados. They are experimenting with different roasting and brewing techniques, while providing more information about the origins of their customers' favorite brew.
That includes where the coffee is from, as well as how and when it was roasted.
At Augie's coffee shop in Redlands, California, bags of coffee list the elevation at which the coffee was grown. A higher altitude is said to lead to a fruitier and more complex flavor.
While Starbucks Corp. isn't offering that level of detail yet, the Seattle-based chain has been working to burnish its reputation. It opened a high-end retail "Reserve Roastery" near its headquarters in 2014.
The company is also offering more coffee from a single origin, rather than the blends most Americans are familiar with. And it recently began using the "Clover" brewing system that it says helps extract the optimal flavor for every cup.
For iced coffee, it also switched to "cold brew" rather than merely brewing hot coffee and chilling it.
The moves by Starbucks come as smaller chains have touted techniques like "nitro brew," which infuses nitrogen gas to create a creamier coffee, and "pour over" brewing, which essentially entails pouring hot water over grounds.
"I've really been able to pick up on what real, good coffee tastes like," said Bekah Stoneking while drinking a nitro brew at Back Alley Coffee Roasters in Wake Forest, North Carolina.
Chris Vigilante, the founder and CEO of Vigilante Coffee, was experimenting with roasting methods in a basement a few years ago and travels the world to hand-select beans. Vigilante Coffee has several locations throughout the Washington, D.C., area and his coffee is distributed nationwide.
The popularity of a new wave of smaller chains was enough that another major chain, Peet's, last year acquired Stumptown, based in Portland, Oregon, and Intelligentsia, based in Chicago. Both helped generate interest in different brewing methods and coffee origins.
"We want to offer different experiences to people through different concepts like Stumptown and Intelligentsia so we capture more than our fair share of all these new consumers, these 18 to 34-year-olds, that are coming very aggressively, very passionately into coffee," said Peet's CEO David Burwick.
Even Dunkin' Donuts, which has an everyman image, introduced a dark roast coffee in late 2014 in nod to changing tastes.
"This is a trend you can't ignore if you're one of those chains," said Duane Stanford, editor of industry tracker Beverage Digest.
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Gillian Flaccus contributed from Long Beach, California. Terry Chea contributed from Alameda, California. Alex Sanz contributed from Atlanta. Allen Breed contributed from Wake Forest, North Carolina.
SHARE Anthony Warren Chambers Date of birth: Jan. 20, 1996 Vitals: 5 feet, 9 inches; 120 pounds; brown hair, blue eyes Charge: Vehicle theft Jamie Lynn Glover Date of birth: April 30, 1989 Vitals: 5 feet, 7 inches; 160 pounds; blond hair, hazel eyes Charge: Receiving known stolen property Kenneth William Griffis Date of birth: July 28, 1970 Vitals: 5 feet, 10 inches; 165 pounds; brown hair, brown eyes Charge: Possessing controlled substance for sale Kathleen Ann McHatton Date of birth: Oct. 23, 1970 Vitals: 5 feet, 3 inches; 125 pounds; blond hair, blue eyes Charge: Grand theft
By Staff Reports
Shasta's Most Wanted, featured in the Record Searchlight in cooperation with local law enforcement agencies, targets people who have failed to show up in court for sentencing after being convicted.
As of Friday a total of 584 arrests have been made through the Most Wanted program since it began in September 2013. Authorities say they have seen an increase in criminals failing to appear in court since the onset of Assembly Bill 109. Also known as prison realignment, the state program shifted certain state prison inmates to county supervision.
Redding Police Chief Robert Paoletti said court appearances have been going up since the rollout.
Five new people are added each week. Those caught will be held until at least their next court appearances. Shasta County Secret Witness is offering a reward of up to $250 for information leading to an arrest. Tips can be provided anonymously at 530-243-2319 or at www.scsecretwitness.com/home/submit-a-tip.
Anyone with information also can call SHASCOM at 245-6540. The feature appears Sundays in the Record Searchlight's Northern California section and on Redding.com.
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By Damon Arthur of the Redding Record Searchlight
Lake Shasta business owners love a full lake.
But Matt Doyle worries that because Lake Shasta is nearly 90 percent full this year the issues important when the lake was low will now be given a lower priority.
One of the more significant issues facing Lake Shasta business owners in recent years has been the proposal to raise the height of Shasta Dam.
"We are afraid the issue is on the back burner now that we have water," said Doyle, general manager of Lake Shasta Caverns and president of the Shasta Lake Business Owners Association.
But the proposal still hangs over businesses that would be required to move to higher ground if the dam is raised 18 1/2 feet as proposed. Raising the height of the dam would make the lake about 14 percent larger.
The four candidates for Shasta County supervisor District 4, which includes the lake, all said if the dam is raised, looking out for the businesses and residents around the lake would be a priority.
The Record Searchlight recently asked each of the candidates whether they supported raising the dam, what needs to be done to address impacts on businesses, residents and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe and what role the Board of Supervisors should play in the issue.
Doyle said a majority of the members of the Shasta Lake Business Owners Association agreed to support raising the height of the dam because it would increase the amount of water in the lake, and they received assurances that they would be reimbursed for all relocation or buyout costs associated with increasing the lake level.
It's been four years since the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation issued a draft feasibility report on the proposal, and more than six months since the release of a final version of that report and an accompanying environmental impact statement.
Since the feasibility report was finalized last year, the bureau has been putting together the administrative record, preparing a draft biological assessment and meeting with potential cost share partners, said Shane Hunt, a spokesman for the bureau.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said the project was feasible from an engineering standpoint but there were several unresolved issues that prevented the secretary of the interior from recommending the project go forward.
The outstanding issues cited in the final feasibility report included the following:
Finding alternate nonfederal sources of money to pay the $1.3 billion cost of the project. Typically the federal government fronts the cost of the project and water agencies repay the money over 40 or 50 years, but the feasibility report says that is "unrealistic" for the dam-raising project because of federal budget constraints.
The bureau is supposed to consult with California officials on raising the height of the dam, but a California law prohibits the state from participating in any project that would impact the McCloud River, which flows into the lake. The McCloud has special status under state law as a wild trout stream.
There are endangered plants and animals that would be affected by the project. Nonfederal agencies that help pay for the dam raising would also have to cover the cost of complying with state and federal endangered species laws. That could include doing work to offset impacts to endangered plants and animals.
With no resolution on those issues in sight, Doyle said the lack of action on the proposal has weighed on business owners as the process has dragged on for years.
"We want a decision, one way or the other. We have been on hold for a long time," he said.
Bill Schappell
Bill Schappell, seeking re-election to represent District 4, said that in light of the disruption to businesses and other property owners around the lake, he could not support the proposal to raise the height of Shasta Dam.
The 74-year-old former Lake Shasta marina owner said the lake only fills once every four years on average, making the project not worth the expense. While the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation estimates it would cost about $1.3 billion to raise the dam, Schappell said it is likely to cost more than that.
"I think the product they receive once they raise the dam is not going to be that beneficial," Schappell said.
Much of Lakeshore Drive in Lakehead would be inundated, and railroad tracks and bridges in the area would need to be removed and rebuilt above the higher water line, he said.
"It's going to disrupt the whole Lakehead community," he said.
He said building Sites Reservoir in western Glenn County would be a better solution to providing more water storage in the North State.
The Shasta County Board of Supervisors can raise questions about the project and provide support or opposition, but beyond that there is little it can do because the project is proposed by a federal agency.
Wally St. Clair
Wally St. Clair said the only way he could support raising the height of Shasta Dam would be if all the affected parties are "made whole."
"I realize we could use more water storage, but at the same time, as a supervisor for the district I would be more concerned about what the effects would be on businesses overall, tribal concerns and overall tourism for Shasta Lake," said St. Clair, 72, a retired manager of the Redding J.C. Penney store
He said business owners, other property owners, tourism and cultural issues surrounding the Winnemem Wintu Tribe would need to be dealt with before he could support the dam, he said.
Higher lake levels from a higher dam would force many businesses and property owners to close or move to higher ground. Owners of businesses and property would have to be fully compensated for moving or closing, he said.
He said he isn't sure what could be done to offset the loss of ceremonial sites important to the Winnemem.
He said the supervisors could stress to federal officials the importance of addressing the issues affecting residents and businesses around the lake.
If the bureau can't adequately address those issues, he also would be willing to look at Sites Reservoir as an alternate.
Walter Albert
Walter Albert said raising the height of Shasta Dam would be good for the businesses and residents around the lake.
"I really don't think there is a reason at this point not to say yes to it," Albert said.
Walter Albert, 47, is a self-employed business consultant and board member of the Columbia School District.
Raising the dam would be a boon to the local economy by bringing in possibly hundreds of jobs during construction, he said.
"Economically, I think it would be great for Shasta County," he said. "On the whole I think it would be a good project."
He said he would want to see the businesses and residents living near the lake compensated for the cost of closing or moving their businesses, but the benefits would outweigh the expense.
After construction on the dam is complete the lake would potentially be larger and a bigger draw for the tourism industry, he said.
As for inundating sites culturally important to the Winnemem on the McCloud River, he said he hoped the tribe could adjust and perhaps hold ceremonies in new locations.
"Hopefully, they could adjust and move a little bit," he said.
The Board of Supervisors should promote the dam raising and the tourism benefits once it is finished, he said.
"How can we, at a local level, embrace it and use it to our advantage?" Albert said.
Steve Morgan
Steve Morgan said he could not support raising the height of Shasta Dam because there are too many negatives and not enough benefits.
"I just don't see any useful purpose for it," said Morgan, 72, a semiretired electrician. He also said he thought Sites Reservoir in western Glenn County is a better answer to storing more water than raising Shasta Dam.
"I just think Sites Reservoir is a better idea," he said.
If the nonfederal water agencies pay for the cost of the project, as the Bureau of Reclamation has suggested, Morgan said he worries those agencies will have more control over how the water in the lake is used.
He was also concerned about sites culturally important to the Winnemem Wintu Tribe along the McCloud Arm of the lake being inundated by the higher lake level.
"The Indians have a lot of sacred land too. If the dam is raised it could put that all under water," Morgan said.
With environmental and cultural issues left unresolved, Morgan said he predicted the project could spur lawsuits to try to stop it.
As for the Board of Supervisors' role, he said it could become involved in writing letters and circulating petitions that could be submitted to members of Congress and other federal officials.
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When Redding's City Council last week approved deals with two of its employee units, the cost to taxpayers rose.
Although this page remains deeply concerned about the cost of public employee compensation particularly pension obligations in the city, the council's decision Tuesday night was the right thing to do in both cases.
The bigger question is the future of such bargaining, and the outsized influence public employee unions still wield. We'll come back to that.
In the case of the 21 Redding Electric Utility positions, the raises add up to 7.5 percent (in three increments of 2.5 percent each). These technical positions at the utility are not where the city should be pinching its pennies on salary.
REU keeps the lights on in Redding, and it hasn't been able to hire for key positions because it isn't competitive with big players like PG&E. This is more of a business question than a labor negotiation question. If the city's going to run an electric company, it needs to pay what it takes to hire and keep technical talent.
Although it's not a big financial difference, we do like the fact that the new deal with the REU employees requires those that remain eligible for a supplemental retirement plan to pay into it for themselves. The Public Agency Retirement System, offered by a private organization and rather deceptively named to sound like the California Public Employees' Retirement System, is a layer on top of an already generous retirement that cities can ill afford to fund.
The other agreement ratified by the council was with a group of about 200 employees who carry on much of the day-to-day work of running the city. The clerical, technical and professional unit of the Redding Independent Employees' Organization was among the first to step up and make concessions during the Great Recession and in the wake of the passage of Measures A and B.
The deal eliminates their furlough Fridays, bringing them back to work regular 40-hour weeks every week, but also restoring 10 percent of their pay as of June 5. And it comes with an additional 2.5 percent raise. At the same time, it phases in their own responsibility for covering the 7 percent contribution to Cal PERS that is known as the "employee contribution" the objective of Measure A.
The RIEO deal also improves the retirement health benefit for a whole class of employees who were otherwise going to have to pay 100 percent of their post-retirement premiums to stay on the city plan. But that just brings them in line with all the other units, and recognizes the fact that they took the first and deepest cut in that area and don't deserve to be stuck with it. We agree that's only fair.
Still, these two sentences from the staff report recommending the deals to the council are quite striking:
"With the successful completion of the RIEO contract negotiations, the City Council's goals of implementing Measure A (employees' payments to CalPERS) and Measure B will have been attained for this employee group.
"The City will be realizing a net increase in cost of approximately $241,000 on an ongoing basis."
When voters overwhelmingly passed those two measures, just over five years ago, they were fed up with the cost of government and what they perceived as the contrast between their own economic pain and the more comfortable compensation plans funded by their taxes.
Did they really believe they were voting for "a net increase in cost"?
We don't think so. There's a reason that so often, when the city makes decisions that are basically rational and prudent, they end up increasing the cost of government.
That reason is that public employee unions have been able to wield enormous power throughout the state and have created a kind of compensation ratchet it only goes one direction.
When the Supreme Court, missing Justice Antonin Scalia, deadlocked recently on a case that would have shaken public unions to their core, it ensured that the system that's in place today will stay for the foreseeable future. Especially in California, where those interests are the strongest.
'The government and the court have to interfere and stop both fireworks and elephants at festivals.'
IMAGE: People at the damaged section of the Puttingal temple in Kollam, Kerala after the fire, April 10, 2016, was extinguished. A huge fire swept through the temple, killing over 100 people. Photograph: Sivaram V/Reuters
V S Jayakumar is the Secretary of the Travancore Devaswom Board and a former executive officer at the Sabarimala shrine.
His brother V S Sivakumar is Kerala's health and Dewasom minister. Most temples in Kerala are managed by Dewasoms, and the Travancore Dewasom Board is perhaps the most influential.
In this exclusive interview, Jayakumar tells Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com about Sunday morning's horrific tragedy at the Puttingal temple near Kollam, Kerala, which claimed over a hundred lives.
What precautions must a temple in Kerala follow if it plans to organise fireworks of large proportions?
It is very rare that temples have fireworks competition as part of a temple festival. What it means is there are more than one or two people in the competition and they burst fireworkers one after another like in any other competition.
Even if it is a competition, it is the duty of the temple authorities to follow all the safety norms strictly.
First and foremost, they should have a large open space to conduct the fireworks. Then, they should have proper godowns that are safe enough to store explosives.
For this, they have to have the permission of the district authorities beforehand. Only after that, can they even store the explosives.
After the temple puts forward an application asking for permission, the district collector would order an inspection. Only after that would s/he issue a license.
If s/he finds the place unsafe, s/he would reject the application.
Did this temple have the permission to organise such huge fireworks?
What I understand is the district collector had rejected the application. That means the temple had organised the fireworks without permission.
Does this temple come under the Travancore Devaswom Board? Many reports say even the Devaswom Board office is fully damaged.
This temple does not come under the Travancore Devaswom Board. We do not have an office in the temple premises, as it is a privately run temple.
If it is a privately run temple, won't the Devswom Board oversee what is happening in such temples?
There are 1,250 temples under the administration of the Devaswom Board. We can only look after the management of these temples.
Other than the 1,250 temples that are under the Board, there are many temples in Kerala run by individuals or trusts.
The Devaswom Board cannot directly get involved in the functioning of privately run temples. But if we see mismanagement, we have the authority to take them over.
Does that mean when something like this happens, the Devaswom Board can take over the temple, citing mismanagement?
We can only take over a temple when there is mismanagement in the functioning. This is different.
What has happened is the temple organised something without getting proper permission from the district administration or the government.
Here, only the government can take legal action against the temple authorities.
Usually in temples, a committee will be formed to oversee temple festivals, especially fireworks.
Who is responsible for this lapse -- the temple authorities or those who conducted the fireworks competition?
I will hold the temple authorities more responsible because they are the people who submit the application for permission.
The district authorities give licenses or permission to the temple and not to the person who is organising the fireworks.
In this case, they have not got a proper license to hold fireworks of such magnitude.
Do you see corruption in this action? Or is it lack of proper knowledge or just negligence?
I will not say they didn't have proper knowledge as they had given an application to the district administration for a license.
If they have gone ahead even after getting a letter that the application had been rejected and that it was illegal to organise fireworks, I would say they didn't care about rules and regulations.
What kind of punishment will they get for this action?
Only the government can take only legal action. The Devaswom Board can only see to it that the next time when they organise something, these people are not included in it.
Other than that, we cannot have any direct involvement in the temple.
Is it safe to have fireworks in a place where many thousands of people assemble? Should Kerala think twice about this tradition?
The time has come to think about such rituals that are followed in the name of tradition.
It is not about one temple, but about many temples that follow this. This has to be stopped in all the temples in Kerala.
You cannot deny permission to one temple and allow it in another, which leads to the feeling that there is a shortcoming in the way that that particular temple is run.
A total ban on fireworks is necessary.
The same rethinking is necessary in the case of having elephants at temple festivals.
The government and the court have to interfere and stop both fireworks and elephants at festivals.
If you ban something that happens only in temples, won't it be looked at as interfering in the affairs of a religious community?
That's why I said it should be banned in the entire Kerala, not just in a few temples.
Amid mounting pressure, United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron on Sunday released his personal tax returns and ordered a new taskforce to probe tax-dodging allegations in a bid to defuse the Panama Papers row over his investment in his late fathers offshore business.
Cameron, who became the first British leader to document his financial affairs due to the unprecedented move, paid almost 76,000 (Rs 71.4 lakh) in tax on an income of more than 200,000 (Rs 1.88 crore) in 2014-15, figures released by the prime minister have shown.
Cameron, 49, earned 46,899 (Rs 44 lakh) from his 50 per cent share of rent on the London family home in Notting Hill, the three-page summary of the prime ministers earnings since 2009 showed.
The disclosure comes hours after Cameron admitted that he could have handled the tax row arising out of the Panama Papers leak better, saying he will imminently publish details of his personal tax affairs.
I know there are lessons to learn and I will learn them, he had said.
He also announced a new taskforce to investigate tax-dodging allegations which is unlikely to spare him despite the confession.
The force will be led by the Her Majestys Revenue and Customs tax authority and the National Crime Agency. The taskforce will investigate the leaked files to identify clients of the Panama firm suspected of money laundering and tax evasion and publish its findings later this year.
Camerons office confirmed he had received two gifts of about $160,000 (Rs 1.06 crore) each from his mother in 2011. That was the year after the prime ministers father died and those gifts did not appear on his income tax returns.
British newspapers questioned whether the gifts were an effort to avoid paying inheritance tax on his late fathers estate. Camerons office declined further comment on the gifts.
The Panama Papers revelations have sparked political reaction around the world, including India, where high-profile figures have been implicated for tax avoidance.
Cameron had been under increasing pressure as he refused to give details of his familys money held offshore in a Caribbean tax haven.
His late father Ian Camerons name is allegedly named in the over 11 million leaked documents from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca that were shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists with 107 media organisations around the world.
According to the Consortium, Ian Cameron used Mossack Fonsecas services to shield profits from his investment fund, Blairmore Holdings Inc, with a series of expensive and complicated arrangements.
Image: Demonstrators hold placards during a protest outside Downing Street in Whitehall, central London. British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Saturday he should have handled scrutiny of his familys tax arrangements better and promised to learn the lessons after days of negative media coverage and calls for his resignation Photograph: Neil Hall/Reuters
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was on Sunday elected as the Janata Dal-United president, a move that would put him in complete command of the party as its seeks to expand beyond the state and prepares for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
His unanimous election to the top post at the partys National Executive meeting brought an end to the decade-old tenure of Sharad Yadav, who had ruled himself out for a fourth term.
It is for the first time that Kumar, JD-Us face in Bihar, has been elected president of the state-centric party. Its two previous presidents -- George Fernandes and Sharad Yadav -- were from outside Bihar, the state they virtually made their political home.
Kumars name was proposed by Yadav and seconded by the partys secretary general K C Tyagi, general secretary Javed Raza, among others, party leaders said following the meeting.
The Bihar chief minister, who made a spectacular return to power last year after his party was bruised and battered in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, told the executive about efforts being made to bring parties with similar ideologies together as he accepted the new responsibility, Tyagi said.
Having spearheaded the Janata Dal-United-Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress alliance to a massive win over the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in the last years state assembly polls, his party is in talks with Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal and former Jharkhand Chief Minister Babulal Marandis Jharkhand Vikas Morcha for a merger.
A similar merger move to bring together six Janata Parivar outfits including the Samajwadi Party had come to nought last year ahead of the Bihar polls after SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav walked out of the talks and his party contested the state assembly elections on its own.
JD-U sees the next years Uttar Pradesh assembly polls as a major battle before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Tyagi said, as he underlined the importance of the merger attempts to take on BJP.
We stopped them (BJP) in Bihar and we are working to stop them in UP, he said, noting that sweeping the Lok Sabha polls in these two states was the key to the emphatic win of the saffron alliance.
Asked if the JD-U would make another attempt at merger with Samajwadi Party, he noted that Mulayam Singh Yadav as well as Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati had made it clear they will go it alone in the elections.
Party sources said the presence of Kumar, the preeminent party leader, at the helm, will help JD-U make swift moves with regard to alliances and also help position himself as a rallying point for opposition parties against Modi in the Lok Sabha polls.
Humbled by partys trust in me. Will try my best to carry Sharad Yadavs legacy forward and I accept the new role as president of JD-U, Kumar tweeted after his election.
The National Council of the party will meet in Patna on April 23 to ratify Kumars election to the top post.
Kumar praised Yadavs contribution to building the JD-U and said he will continue to be a margdarshak (mentor) to the party.
With speculations over the Rajya Sabha MPs future role, Yadav said he would continue to broaden the base of the party which had no longer remained big.
I will remain what I was earlier... I am in national politics not due to the party, he told reporters earlier in the day at his residence where JD-Us office bearers had met.
A resolution passed at the Executive hailed Yadav, saying he maintained an honourable distance from nepotism, self-glorification and factionalism.
Yadav, one of the founder leaders of the party along with Nitish Kumar, had been at the helm since 2006 and was reelected for a third term in 2013 after the JD-U constitution was amended to allow him a third term in office.
Tyagi said an atmosphere of despondency, similar to the one before the Lok Sabha polls, now prevailed in the country with BJPs pursuit of contentious issues. He called the BJPs alliance with Peoples Democratic Party to form government in Jammu and Kashmir opportunism of the highest order.
BJP under Narendra Modi and Amit Shah is not the party of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani, he said.
Hitting out at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh over its nationalism pitch, Tyagi said the Hindutva outfits head in 1947 had disapproved of the tricolour, saying three (the number of colours in the flag) was an inauspicious number.
Image: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and newly elected JD-U national president being greeted by outgoing party president Sharad Yadav. Photograph: Subhav Shukla/PTI
The country was on Sunday left shocked and saddened as it woke up to the massive temple tragedy in Kerala, with President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with other leaders and prominent personalities joining the people in mourning the loss of lives in the fire incident.
IMAGE: Locals rush the injured to nearby hospitals for treatment after a massive blaze broke out at the Kollam temple. Photograph: Chandu, TVM
Fire at temple in Kollam is heartrending and shocking beyond words. My thoughts are with families of the deceased and prayers with the injured, Modi, who visited Kollam, said in a tweet.
President Pranab Mukerjee also conveyed heartfelt condolences on loss of lives in Kerala temple fire.
Praying for the departed souls and well being of the injured, Congress president Sonia Gandhi asked Kerala government to ensure ample and immediate relief measures while party vice-president Rahul Gandhi decided to visit Kollam.
Modi said he spoke to Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and announced an ex-gratia relief of Rs 2 lakh for the kin of the dead and Rs 50,000 for those seriously injured.
While ordering a judicial probe, Chandy also announced ex-gratia relief of Rs 10 lakh to kin of each of those killed in fire tragedy and Rs 2 lakh for seriously injured.
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Bharatiya Janata Party Chief Amit Shah, chief ministers, governors and leaders of various parties expressed grief over the tragedy.
Very sad news from Kerala. My deepest condolences to the families who lost their loved ones. Prayers for those injured, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee tweeted.
Saddened by the Kerala temple fire tragedy. My heartfelt condolences to families of the deceased and prayers with those injured, her Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar said on Twitter.
National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said his thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. God be with them in this hour of darkness and despair, he tweeted.
Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad too expressed grief at the Kollam temple fire incident saying, heart goes out for the victims and families.
Very sad to hear such tragic news. Prayers with all victims, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said in a tweet.
At least 100 people were killed and nearly 400 injured in a major fire that broke out in PuttingalDeviTemple complex packed with thousands of people near Kollam in Kerala about 3 am on Sunday during a display of fireworks for which there was no permission from the authorities.
Bollywood too was shaken by the tragedy with filmmaker Shekhar Kapur appealing for control over fire works.
People go to pray and celebrate life. Come away in wake of death and tragedy fireworks getting dangerous and must must be controlled Kollam.
Megastar Amitabh Bachchan retweeted emergency helpline numbers following the tragedy.
John Abraham said, Devastated knowing about the innocent lives lost at the Kollam fire, my condolences to their families & prayers for all the injured!
Actress Dia Mirza blamed the tragedy on negligence. When tragedies are struck by human apathy and negligence it makes it so much more painful...so many innocent lives lost. Gutted. Kollam.
Heart goes out to all who lost a loved one in #KollamTempleFire.. deepest condolences. Hope lessons will be learned re firework safety (sic), actor-director Farhan Akhtar said.
Halloween events, fall festivals pack October in Abilene, Big Country
From family-friendly to frightful, there are plenty of opportunities to don the costumes and scare up some treats.
The Reporter-News editorial April 1 brought back memories of a political 'carnival atmosphere' 40 years ago when 'Governor' Jimmy Carter came to Abilene as part of his 1976 presidential campaign to defeat incumbent President Gerald Ford.
It was to be billed as 'Georgia peanut farmer' meets 'West Texas cattlemen' at Abilene Livestock Auction. Advance stories ran for weeks yes, a 'media dream' in those days, too. Indeed, the former governor also was 'on a roll' then to become the 39th president, something he later did handily.
The '76 visit required weeks of preparation at the auction, especially regarding security for the big facility just off northeast Interstate 20. Beyond security, it also meant 'cleaning up the place' back in the days when cigars and spittoons for tobacco chewers were common in the sale auditorium. But auction officials got the place spic and span.
The Reporter-News did its job of advancing the arrival. The visit was arranged to be on a regular cattle sale day at the auction some special Hereford cattle were placed in the arena in high anticipated arrival of Carter to the auctioneer's podium that afternoon.
On the big day, the auction auditorium was standing room only, and so with every seat taken, folks sat on the stairways awaiting the Carter arrival. Not just the regular cattlemen, of course, but Abilene and Big Country political leaders.
When the jet landed at the airport, Mr. Strain, who owned the auction, went to the auctioneer's podium and announced Carter had landed in Abilene the crowd cheered wildly knowing the airport was close and the governor would arrive shortly.
But then something went horribly wrong.
The Carter entourage drove from the airport straight to the Abilene Civic Center, which had been billed as only a possible 'second' stop if time allowed (in Carter's advance materials).
Meanwhile, the heavy detail of security was spinning gravel tearing out of the auction's big parking lot to head for the Civic Center.
More than half the huge crowd also left the auction in enormous disappointment.
There were a couple of television sets, including one in the adjacent veterinary lab, so some ranchers, cattle buyers and others watched from there. Carter said he had to wind up the Civic Center talk to visit ranchers at Abilene Livestock Auction.
Mr. Strain rushed back to the podium microphone, urging any remaining attendees to stay that apparently the schedule had simply gotten mixed up in reverse.
Some came back in and sat down in the auditorium.
But those in the lobby soon could see the Carter entourage had returned directly to the airport with its motorcade. And they were gone. Didn't even honk or wave goodbye.
The auction folks, after spending time and money to welcome the Plains, Georgia, peanut grower were outraged and crushed, of course. So were attendees.
While Abilene Livestock Auction had The Associated Press, United Press International, the major television networks and Time magazine on hand awaiting this 'media event, Carter's advisers/staff had 'steered' him to the Civic Center to get local TV coverage. The national media was livid.
The Reporter-News headline followed across the entire front page (with great photos) that ranchers lose out on meeting Carter.
What Gov. Carter said at the Civic Center (which he could have said at any civic center on any given day or week) went on an inside page.
Although many in the auction crowd of 40 years ago have passed, Randy Carson, who went from hardworking teenage employee to part owner, and eventually owner and president of the auction, would still remember it vividly.
Some others probably still are miffed.
Former longtime and award-winning Reporter-News farm editor J.T. Smith lives in Tuscola.
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KYIV -- Ukrainian officials said vile Russian missile strikes on civilian energy sites have caused power outages nationwide, leaving more than a million households without electricity, while Russian authorities ordered residents to leave Kherson "immediately" ahead of an expected effort by Kyivs forces to retake the crucial southern city.
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.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram on October 22 that Russia carried out a "massive attack" on Ukraine overnight and that "the aggressor continues to terrorize our country."
"At night, the enemy launched a massive attack: 36 rockets, most of which were shot down...These are vile strikes on critical objects. Typical tactics of terrorists," he wrote. "The world can and must stop this terror."
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of Zelenskiys office, said Ukrainian air defense forces had shot down 18 of the missiles.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a number of missiles had been shot down on the approach to the capital.
"Several rockets flying toward Kyiv were shot down in the region by air defense forces. Thanks to our defenders!" Klitschko said.
There was no immediate word on deaths related to the missile attacks, but officials said several people had been injured.
It was not possible to verify the reports on either side.
In the face of continued Russian strikes, Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba again urged Ukraine's Western allies to speed up the delivery of modern air defense systems.
"We intercepted some, others hit the targets. Air defense saves lives. In [Western] capitals, there should not be a single minute of delay in the decision regarding air defense systems for Ukraine," Kuleba said.
Local officials said power stations were hit in the regions of Odesa, Kirovohrad, and Lutsk, while other regions reported problems with electricity.
"Another rocket attack from terrorists who are fighting against civilian infrastructure and people," the Ukrainian president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote on the Telegram app.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told a government meeting that from October 10 to October 20, Russian strikes damaged more than 400 facilities in 16 regions of Ukraine, including dozens of energy facilities.
"The Russian Army has identified our energy sector as one of the key targets for its attacks," Shmyhal said on October 21.
"Russian propagandists and officials speak openly about the purpose of all these attacks: Ukraine, according to them, should be left without water, without light, without heat," he said.
Meanwhile, Russian-appointed authorities in the occupied and illegally seized southern Kherson region on October 22 ordered the estimated 60,000 residents of the region's eponymous main city to leave "immediately" in the face of Kyiv's advancing counteroffensive.
"Due to the tense situation on the front, the increased danger of mass shelling of the city and the threat of terrorist attacks, all civilians must immediately leave the city and cross to the left bank of the Dnieper River," the region's Russia-backed authorities said on social media.
Russina-installed officials are moving people out of the strategic city in what they are calling an evacuation but which Ukrainian officials label as deportations.
The order came in spite of a claim by Russia's Defense Ministry on October 22 that its forces had prevented an attempt by Ukraine to break through its line of control in Kherson.
"All attacks were repulsed, the enemy was pushed back to their initial positions," the Defense Ministry said, adding that Ukraine's offensive was launched toward the settlements of Piatykhatky, Suhanove, Sablukivka and Bezvodne, on the west side of the Dnieper River.
The ministry's statement said Russian forces had also repelled attacks in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
Kherson city, which had a prewar population of 280,000, is one of the first urban areas occupied by Russia at the start of the invasion.
Zelenskiys office said 88 settlements in the southern Kherson region and 551 settlements in the northeastern Kharkiv region have been de-occupied, while the Ukrainian forces' counteroffensive in the Kherson region moves ahead.
Ukraine is trying to drive Russian forces in Kherson back east across the Dnieper. 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.
Natalya Humenyuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraines southern operational command, said the Ukrainian military struck the Antonivskiy Bridge over the Dnieper in the city of Kherson during an overnight curfew Russia-installed officials put in place to avoid civilian casualties.
We do not attack civilians and settlements," Humenyuk told Ukrainian television.
Ukrainian strikes made the Antonivskiy Bridge inoperable, prompting Russian authorities to set up ferry crossings and pontoon bridges to relocate civilians and transport supplies.
Russia has sent in thousands of recently mobilized troops to reinforce the defense of Kherson, the General Staff of Ukraine's armed forces said on October 21.
Zelenskiy again on October 21 urged the West to warn Russia not to blow up a dam at the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant on the Dnieper River as this could flood settlements toward Kherson.
Zelenskiy said Russian forces had planted explosives inside the dam, which holds back an enormous reservoir, and were planning to blow it up.
"Now everyone in the world must act powerfully and quickly to prevent a new Russian terrorist attack. Destroying the dam would mean a large-scale disaster," he said in his nightly address.
With reporting by Reuters, AFP, AP, and the BBC
Toronto-based Iranian filmmaker Mostafa Azizi who was sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran, has been released, his son, Arash Azizi, said.
Azizi wrote on Twitter on April 9 that his father had been freed from prison after being included in an amnesty.
Azizi was reportedly convicted of charges that included spreading propaganda against the Iranian establishment and insulting Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
The filmmaker had returned to Tehran from Canada to visit his ailing father, and was considering staying when he was arrested in February 2015, his son said.
Rights groups had called for his release.
Based on reporting by AFP and Radio Farda
Iranian opposition figure Mehdi Karrubi, under house arrest since February 2011, has called on President Hassan Rohani to ask the autocratic Iranian establishment for a court hearing.
Iranian authorities put Karrubi and his fellow opposition figures Mir Hossein Musavi along with his wife Zahra Rahnavard under house arrest after they repeatedly challenged Iranian leaders over the 2009 disputed reelection of Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
The three also criticized a post-election state crackdown.
Karrubi, a former parliamentary speaker, and Musavi, a former prime minister, ran as presidential candidates in the 2009 vote. Karrubi was also a presidential candidate in the 2005 presidential election.
In a letter to Rohani, published by an opposition website on April 9, Karrubi said that hes ready to show that the 2005 and 2009 elections that Ahmadinejad won were rigged.
He also said that he would shed light on the plight of prisoners held in Irans legal and illegal detention centers.
Karrubi said hes aware that Rohani does not have the authority to end his house arrest.
Rohani promised in his 2013 election campaign that he would work to end the house arrest of opposition figures.
Iranian hard-liners have accused Musavi and Karrubi of harming the Islamic republic.
Iran's foreign minister says Tehran will not negotiate with the United States over its missile program.
The missile program and "defense capabilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran are not negotiable," said Mohammad Javad Zarif on April 10 after meeting with his Estonian counterpart Marina Kaljurand.
Zarif said the nuclear agreement that was reached between Iran and the United States and other major world powers does not include Tehran's missile program, which Tehran says is only for defense purposes.
Under the nuclear accord reached last year, Iran has significantly limited its sensitive nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief.
Zarif also said that, if Washington was serious about defensive issues in the Middle East, it should stop providing Israel and Saudi Arabia with arms.
Zarif was reacting to last week's comments by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry who said the United States is open to a "new arrangement" with Iran for peacefully resolving disputes over its missile tests.
Kerry said on April 7 that the United States and its allies have told Iran that they are "prepared to work on a new arrangement to find a peaceful solution to these issues."
But he said Iran first had to "make it clear to everybody that they are prepared to cease these kinds of activities that raise questions about credibility and questions about intentions."
Zarif accused the U.S. of raising "baseless and and threadbare" accusations against Iran while claiming that some of the U.S. allies in the region were supporting the extremist group Islamic State (IS).
"Kerry should ask U.S. allies who provides [IS] with weapons, who buys the oil and looted antiques of Iraq and Syria from this terrorist group,"Zarif was quoted as saying byIran's government news agency IRNA.
Based on reporting by AP and IRNA
Migrants clashed with Macedonian police on April 10 after they were stopped from scaling a border fence between Macedonia and Greece.
Reports said police used tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber bullets to push back the migrants, who responded by throwing rocks at the officers.
Aid organization Doctors Without Borders said its medical volunteers on site treated some 300 people for breathing problems from the gas, cuts, bruises, and impact injuries from plastic bullets. At least six injured were hospitalized.
Macedonian police said 23 members of the security forces were injured, including five seriously.
The violence occurred near the Idomeni crossing, where more than 11,000 migrants are camped out on the Greek side of the border.
Balkan states closed off the migrant route to northern Europe in mid-February.
The unrest reportedly began after a crowd of 500 people reacted to rumors that the border was about to open.
After the rumor was denied by the Macedonian police, more than a hundred migrants, including children, tried to climb the fence twice but were pushed back as the clashes continued into the afternoon.
The wind brought tear gas fumes into the Idomeni camp where people not involved in the clashes suffered from respiratory problems.
Greek policemen stood by without intervening.
George Kyritsis, a spokesman for migration coordinators in the Greek government, said the use of force by Macedonian police was a "dangerous and deplorable act."
Greek authorities estimate that there are around 53,000 migrants stranded in the country.
Under the EU-Turkey deal, all new migrants crossing from Turkey into Greece from March 20 will be returned to Turkey.
For every Syrian being returned to Turkey from Greece, a Syrian refugee will be resettled from Turkey to the EU.
The agreement has been condemned by rights groups.
With reporting by RFE/RL's Balkan Service, Reuters, AFP, and AP
ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Turkish TV news anchor Banu Guven said watching her president get grilled on press freedom by CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour hours earlier evoked a sense of schadenfreude.
"It was an amazing experience to see President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan so polite this time," Guven said. "In Turkey, journalists who would ask him those kinds of questions wouldn't be able to have the opportunities to interview him at all."
Guven was speaking outside the trial on April 1 of Can Dundar and Erdem Gul, two high-profile Turkish journalists facing possible life sentences for an expose on Turkey's alleged smuggling of arms to Syria. Local media say Dundar and Gul's case is the most extreme example of a widespread crackdown on a free press.
Dundar, the editor in chief of the opposition Cumhuriyet daily, and Gul, its Ankara bureau chief, published a story in May that claimed that Turkish intelligence was disguising arms as humanitarian aid in a truck en route to Syria. The story suggested that Turkey has been backing rebels with links to the radical Islamist group Islamic State (IS).
Erdogan denied the claim and said the truck was transporting humanitarian supplies to Turkomans in Syria. He accused the two journalists of espionage and they were detained for 92 days before their trial began in late March. In an unusual move, the court proceedings have been sealed to all but lawyers for Dundar and Gul.
'War With The Press'
Last week, CNN interviewer Amanpour told Erdogan, "I don't understand...why you have gone to war with your press." He replied, "I'm not at war with the press."
"My country has laws in place," Erdogan added. "If a member of the press or an executive of a newspaper [is] engaging in espionage, disclosing a country's secrets to the rest of the world, and if this conduct becomes a part of a litigation, a litigation will result in a verdict."
Guven was among hundreds of lawyers, journalists, parliamentarians, and sympathizers who milled in the hallway outside the closed courtroom.
She said she felt the ire of Erdogan's government while interviewing the two accused journalists on her TV news program hours after they were released from custody in February. During the interview, Guven's IMC TV channel was abruptly pulled off satellite broadcaster Turksat. She said the state prosecutor had requested that Turksat stop broadcasting her TV news two days before -- but the yank was unannounced.
"The EU must be well aware of the situation of the press here in Turkey," she said.
Istanbul lawyer Serap Demirtas accused the EU of hypocrisy.
"I believe they are the community of renaissance and reforms," she said. "But with the recent events of the refugees, they prove their hypocrisy.... They are bribing us to keep the refugees in our country."
Bulent Kenes, who founded the English-language Today's Zaman in 2007, said he was working as a columnist at the newspaper's office on the night of March 4, when hundreds of police officers raided it, using water cannons and tear gas to disperse protesters. He and other staff were dismissed the next day.
Kenes had served a 21-month suspended jail sentence over insulting Erdogan on Twitter.
"I couldn't concentrate on my duty because every day, every week I had a testimony at the police station, a testimony in the prosecutor's office," he said.
As his trial continues, Kenes said the government had confiscated his passport. Colleagues who were ousted from the Turkish-language Zaman Daily have started a new newspaper called Yarina Bakis, or Look to Tomorrow, but Kenes has not visited its offices because he fears he could incriminate his friends.
Twitter Takedowns
Eylem Yanardagoglu, deputy dean of the Department of New Media at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, said that the Turkish government and press have had a tortured relationship since the Gezi Park protests, a wave of civil unrest that erupted in May 2013 over a plan to convert an open space in central Taksim Square into a mall and luxury apartments. Thousands of Turks demonstrated nationwide against increasing government repression, and police reacted with tear gas, water cannons, and pepper spray, injuring thousands.
At the time, Yanardagoglu said, the government ordered cellular data cut off to mobile phones. Mainstream Turkish TV stations did not cover the protests, she said, pushing demonstrators to rely on foreign reports and social media.
A Twitter report showed that Turkey issued 450 court orders to remove content from the site in 2015, accounting for 93 percent of all such requests worldwide.
Dundar and Gul maintain their innocence. Their next hearing will be on April 22. Dundar's son Ege, 21, said at the court that his father was holding up to the pressure well. He said he enjoyed the opportunity to reconnect over films and poetry.
Some Turks say Erdogan's pressure tactics are appropriate.
In the Kasimpasa neighborhood of Istanbul where Erdogan grew up, photographer Soner Avcioglu, 55, stepped away from a dominoes table and said the trial against Dundar and Gul was justified.
"All the big powers in the world, they send weapons to a lot of countries, to a lot of war zones," Avcioglu said. "We can do it as well, and the [Turkish] central intelligence agency does not have to disclose it."
He said reports like Dundar's gave fuel to Turkey's enemies. On April 1, Russian United Nations Ambassador Vitaly Churkin accused Turkish foundations of supplying $1.9 billion worth of military assistance to IS members in Syria, via Turkish intelligence.
A Turkish spokesman told the AP news agency that Russia's letter was "an attempt to overshadow the civilian deaths, havoc, and destruction in Syria caused by the military operations of the Russian Federation, the regime's staunchest ally."
Erdogan's hard line on the press has extended to Germany. He demanded that German broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk take offline a satirical film that mocks Erdogan as "The Boss From The Bosphorus."
WATCH: "The Boss From The Bosphorus" (NDR TV)
Editor Andreas Lange said there was no chance he would remove the film.
"Merkel needs Erdogan in the refugee crisis and obviously accepts a [partial] lack of democracy in Turkey," he wrote RFE/RL in an e-mail.
Yanardagoglu said she thought the film was "brilliant."
"I laughed a lot when I watched it," she said. "But also, it's kind of embarrassing."
The European Union has criticized an "unprecedented level of violence" in eastern Ukraine after international monitors came under fire.
"The significant increase of cease-fire violations in the Donetsk region represents an unprecedented level of violence," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement on April 10.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said late on April 9 that a team of its monitors in eastern Ukraine had come under fire 50 kilometers south of Donetsk.
There were no injuries in the incident.
OSCE observers were also shot at on April 7 and, on the same day, another monitoring group was threatened at gunpoint by a rebel, forcing the observers to leave a checkpoint they needed to pass.
The OSCE has said that it had observed a "significantly higher number of cease-fire violations" in the Donetsk region.
Mogherini added that "a sustainable ceasefire is urgently needed."
More than 9,100 people have been killed in the fighting in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and some 21,000 wounded since the conflict broke out in 2014.
Based on reporting by AFP and dpa
HERNDON In late October, John Czupak joined the board of directors of ThreatQuotient, a fledgling Northern Virginia cybersecurity company that had received $1.5 million in seed financing less than six months earlier from a group of investors that included the Center for Innovative Technology and the Virginia Tech Investor Network.
In early December, with Czupak as its new CEO, the still-tiny company raised an additional $10.2 million in funding from investors led by New Enterprise Associates and including the CIT, a state-backed nonprofit that helps finance startup technology companies.
Less than six months later, ThreatQuotient has hired 50 people at its Reston headquarters and walked away with the prize for cybersecurity startup company of the year at a power-packed industry conference in San Francisco.
Weve got a real business that is pursuing a real opportunity that would not have happened without CIT and the Virginia Tech Investor Network, said Czupak, 53, a 25-year veteran of the cybersecurity industry in the Washington area.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe also is trying to seize an economic opportunity by making new investments in cybersecurity in the pending two-year state budget and refocusing the 31-year-old CIT on its mission of nurturing new technologies into the industries of the future in Virginia.
It is an industry driven by urgent concerns over the vulnerability of interconnected information networks to criminal behavior and crippling attacks by bad actors that range from common hackers to foreign governments.
I talk about cyber every single day, the governor said at an information security conference in Richmond last week. It is the one area that the federal government will spend billions and billions of dollars in.
The budget includes $17.4 million to improve the states own cybersecurity, primarily for a new shared services center for agencies that arent big enough to require their own cybersecurity staffs; money to hire additional cybercrime investigators for the Virginia State Police and cyberanalysts at the departments fusion center; and almost $5 million to expand cybersecurity training in higher education, one-third of what McAuliffe had asked.
The MACH37 Cyber Accelerator, launched almost three years ago at CIT, would receive an additional $500,000 in operating funds for an intensive 14-week program that currently is training six startup companies on how to turn their technological ideas into commercial realities. The new class brings the total to 35 companies since the program began.
ThreatQuotient was not one of them; it was helped with financing through the CITs Growth Accelerator Program, or GAP, for early-stage companies. It emerged as one of the stars of the annual RSA Conference that drew hundreds of cybersecurity experts to San Francisco. The company won awards for innovation and cybersecurity startup of the year.
That is a huge win for us to go into Silicon Valley and have a Virginia company recognized as the startup of the year, said Secretary of Technology Karen R. Jackson, who accompanied the governor and CIT leaders on the trip.
Jackson, co-chair of the governors Cyber Security Commission, spent 19 years of her career at CIT, created in 1985 as the brainchild of then-Gov. Charles S. Robb to turn new technologies into businesses that create jobs and enrich the public treasury, especially in the Northern Virginia region that long served as the states economic engine.
The engine runs more quietly now after the worst recession since the 1930s and an ongoing congressional budget battle that produced sequestration almost four years ago, forcing deep cuts in federal spending that hit hard in regions that depend on the military and defense contractors.
But Northern Virginia remains part of a hotbed of cybersecurity in large part because of the Pentagon in Arlington County and what Jackson calls three-letter agencies, such as the CIA, FBI and, in Maryland, the NSA, or National Security Agency.
Richard Stiennon, a cyber industry analyst who founded IT-Harvest, last month ranked the Washington region second only to California in the number of cybersecurity vendors in the United States, which has 60 percent of the cyber companies in the world.
Maryland has moved aggressively to develop the cybersecurity industry, using government support and academic research, said Czupak, a native of Upper Marlboro, Md., who has lived in Leesburg for 17 years while working for cyber companies in Northern Virginia.
I think Virginia has just as great an opportunity, he said.
Czupak was a senior executive for 12 years at Sourcefire, a cybersecurity company based in Columbia, Md., that had its second-largest office at Tysons Corner in Fairfax County. A startup company that grew to employ more than 700 people, Sourcefire was purchased for $2.7 billion in 2013 by Cisco, based in the Silicon Valley.
He said McAuliffe is right to bemoan the thousands of vacancies for high-paying jobs in cybersecurity, which has grown faster than the ability to train people to fill them.
Its an absolute fact for our industry that the demand for talent, especially technical talent, and the supply, theres just a disconnect, he said. There is a legitimate opportunity for job creation within this region.
But Jackson believes the opportunities for high-paying jobs in cybersecurity extend far beyond Northern Virginia. There are also cyber jobs in Richmond, cyber jobs in Hampton Roads, cyber jobs in Roanoke, she said.
There isnt any company anywhere that isnt going to have to pay attention to cyber.
***
The two-year budget adopted by the General Assembly and awaiting McAuliffes proposed amendments today presents CIT with both great opportunities and challenges.
The opportunities include $800,000 that is part of the caboose budget for the current fiscal year to fill a shortfall in operating revenues that Ed Albrigo identified soon after becoming the centers president and CEO in November, and $750,000 to develop an information sharing and analysis organization for public agencies and private companies.
The budget also transfers to CIT the full responsibility for $5.6 million it already has been administering for the Commonwealth Research Commercialization Fund, which provides grants to companies and researchers to turn technological research into marketable products.
The biggest opportunity may be its role in vetting collaborative higher education research projects for grants and loans from the Virginia Research Investment Fund, proposed in separate legislation awaiting the governors signature but connected to $22 million in the budget as well as $29 million for laboratories and other capital needs as part of a bond package that also is pending his approval.
The purposes of the new fund mirror those of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Investment Authority created in 1984 to oversee the CIT, notably to foster innovative and collaborative research, development and commercialization efforts in the commonwealth in projects and programs with a high potential for economic development and job creation opportunities. The presidents of three major research institutions the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech and Virginia Commonwealth University sit on the CIT board of directors.
The budgets challenges for CIT include much more detailed state reporting requirements for its operations, including the award of bonuses or incentive pay, such as the $883,000 paid out to employees in September, two months before Albrigo arrived and determined that revenues were likely to fall short by a similar amount in the fiscal year that will end June 30.
Ive told CIT they need to tighten things up, McAuliffe said in an interview last week.
Albrigo said the payouts were unrelated to the projected shortfall, but he made clear that he understands the public mission of the center and almost 40 employees with more than $11 million in annual funding from the state.
At the end of the day, I view it as were an asset of the commonwealth, he said. How do we leverage the commonwealths funding with private funding to benefit the commonwealth? To me, that means economic potential.
The budget also would open the way to sell the CIT complex, including a signature tower that has been both lauded as a distinctive architectural landmark and likened to an upside-down wedding cake. The proceeds from a sale would go into the new higher education research investment fund.
The property lies next to what will be the Innovation Center stop on the Metro transit system when it is extended to Washington Dulles International Airport, so state officials consider it too valuable for a complex that is 85 percent rented out to other entities.
That shouldnt be our focus, said Sen. Frank M. Ruff Jr., R-Mecklenburg, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which has pushed to sell the property. Our focus should be getting money into research.
The governor has not commented on the budget proposal to make the property surplus for eventual sale, but Jackson said: The value of any organization shouldnt be in the building. Its what goes on inside the building.
***
ThreatQuotient popped up as an investment opportunity when Jennifer ODaniel was looking for Virginia startup companies on a list seeking angel investors.
ODaniel is director of investments at CIT and co-founder of the Virginia Tech Investors Network, supported by CIT and consisting of her and about 75 other Tech alumni looking for ways to help their own. So far, the network has invested in five companies.
Were interested in Hokie-led startups, she said.
ThreatQuotient was founded in 2013 by Wayne Chiang, a Tech graduate and the companys chief architect, and Ryan Trost, its chief technology officer. Both had worked in the security operations center at General Dynamics Corp., a Falls Church-based aerospace and defense company that has become the principal private sponsor of the MACH37 Cyber Accelerator at CIT.
The companys signature product is a threat intelligence platform that aggregates and analyzes an enormous amount of data about potential cyberthreats to a companys information network, and quickly arms the system against those threats. What we do is operationalize the intelligence, Czupak said.
ODaniel turned to the CITs GAP funds to provide $100,000 of what became $1.5 million in seed financing for the company a year ago. The other investors included the Virginia Tech Investors Network and Blu Venture Investors. One of the Virginia Tech investors who worked with Czupak at Sourcefire contacted him about joining the company.
Czupak, in turn, used his contacts in the cyber investment community to arrange the next level of financing led by NEA, a multibillion-dollar venture capital firm. CIT made another small investment in the company as part of the $10.2 million financing, which has enabled the company to grow quickly.
Our entire goal is to invest in companies and attract other capital to those companies, ODaniel said.
CIT officials estimate the GAP funds leverage every dollar invested by 18.5 times, using $17.9 million in equity investments to attract $331 million in private investment in companies with a total value of $798 million. They estimate those companies will create up to 9,000 jobs in Virginia over the next five years. The budget allocates $3.1 million a year to the program and requires a return on investment of no less than 11 to 1.
Most of the CITs investments and grants have been in companies or researchers outside Northern Virginia, but the cybersecurity industry is still rooted in the region. So while the state-sponsored enterprise could move, its MACH37 Cyber Accelerator wants to remain in the area because all of the customers are here, said Rick Gordon, managing partner of the accelerator he founded with CIT in 2013.
Since its founding, MACH37 has invested more than $1.4 million in 29 companies, not including the current class of six, whose participants came from Turkey, Seattle and Boston, as well as Northern Virginia and Charlottesville. Each company receives a $50,000 startup grant. The only stipulation is they must have a significant presence in the state.
We ask the question: Are you willing to move to Virginia? Albrigo said.
State lawmakers put additional money in MACH37 in the pending budget, but they want more detailed reporting on the benefits to the state from an enterprise they expect to sustain itself financially by next year.
We want to keep it going, but we also wanted to see some results, Ruff said.
The critical role of cybersecurity is something upon which Republican legislators and McAuliffe agree. Theres no way you can get any higher on the radar screen, said Del. John M. OBannon III, R-Henrico, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on economic development.
As a physician in one of Virginias largest health systems, OBannon understands the threat to confidential patient and financial information from outside intrusions and attacks. We need our smart guys to be better than their smart guys, he said.
Legislators also see the economic potential in cybersecurity as a business. We dont know, Ruff said, but we think its going to be pretty big.
I was in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia when I heard of the passing of Earl Hamner Jr., the great American writer who etched these hills, back roads and rivers into the hearts and minds of readers around the world.
On March 25th, Earls beloved redbud trees were about to bloom as the dogwood blossoms were making their first appearance in the hills surrounding his boyhood home in Schuyler. Earl would have loved this Appalachian spring, as he had described similar ones so beautifully in his novels, Spencers Mountain and Fifty Roads to Town.
His first published work appeared here in the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 1929, a poem called My Dog, even though Earl didnt have one. He was six years old but had heard the call, one he would answer until the last day of his life: the knowledge that he was a writer.
Earl would travel the world, fish in oceans with names youve never heard of, fight in a war, live in big cities and smaller ones, but when he sat down to write, he wrote what he knew, what filled him up, what brought him joy, confounded and completed him: his family.
His brothers and sisters Cliff, Marion, Bill, Jim, Audrey, Nancy, and Paul along with his father and mother were his muses. The colorful extended family that lived near and far to them in Virginia were part of the landscape, including the Giannini clan, with roots in Lucca, Italy, and the Hamners, who emmigrated from Wales. If you look at Earls body of work, he used everything he observed, painting every hue and color from the palette of the Hamner and Giannini families.
***
I was a girl in Big Stone Gap in a family of seven children when The Waltons debuted on television in 1972, and every Thursday thereafter, at 8 oclock on CBS, I was there, enchanted by the world Earl Hamner had created.
Besotted with John Boy, who wanted desperately to be a writer (I had my own secret about that), it was as if Earl knew what I was thinking. But I wasnt alone. Fifty-eight million Americans took to the Walton family, making the show No. 1 in the country. Earl dramatized the Great Depression in all its darkness and want, but the light shone through in the characters who were rich in their relationships, their connection to one another, their mutual longing for home and a reverence for words. Earl knew what the audience was hungry for and he fed us.
***
Earls adaptation of Charlottes Web still shimmers, Heidi is a delight, and his episodes of The Twilight Zone are wildly original. Youll remember the wonderful series Apples Way and the award-winning television movie Where Lillies Bloom. Earl made a huge splash with the epic, Ferber-esque night time drama Falcons Crest, about a family wine business where jealousy and deceit twisted through the grape arbors like poison ivy as the Giobertis fought for control, land, riches, and the family name.
There are more projects, including plays, childrens books, memoirs, and a documentary film for which he was the subject, a lifetime of work to savor, a lifetime of Earl. I received a letter from him two weeks before he died, where he described a project he was working on. Earl, at 92, was working, creating, and writing.
Earl was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Virginia in 2011. The audience was packed with family, friends, and among the Virginia luminaries, our great former Gov. Linwood Holton, and another Hamner-holic, the brilliant author David Baldacci.
About a year before the big night, I reached out to Earl, terrified that this writer, who I idolized, who had influenced my work and appreciation for the place I was raised, could not possibly live up to the person I imagined him to be. How thrilled I was to discover that Earl was hilariously funny, warm, accessible, and wise in that way that does not make the person who is gleaning the wisdom feel like an idiot.
In person, Earl was so tall, he was mighty, yet there was a gentleness to his power, and an inclusiveness despite the fact that he towered over everyone. If you like movies from the golden age of Hollywood, in person, Earl was a combination of Jimmy Stewart and Joel McRea with the countenance of William Powell. Earl was a Virginia gentleman without the fuss.
***
Earl was in love with Jane, his wife of 62 years. His reverence for marriage and commitment is one of my favorite ribbons in his work. Henry Fonda and Maureen OHara were so sexy in Spencers Mountain, and even with all they had to overcome, Ralph Waite and Michael Learned were crazy for each other on the Waltons, in that way. Will Geer played mad for Ellen Corby, so when she fell ill, and his heart broke, yours did too. Great actors, yes, but it was also in the script. Earl wrote the arc of long-term romantic relationships with respect and wonder, and in his telling, they seem glorious, because to him, they were.
Whenever Earl closed a letter, he gave an update on Scott and Caroline and Pepe, and how he hated to be a burden to his children and son-in-law. He was crazy about them too, and grateful for their love and sacrifice as they cared for Jane and for him in what he called their old age. But there was never anything old about Earl Hamner. He was always jazzed about the potential of a new project and looked forward to writing every day.
He was more than inspiring; he made anything you might want to attempt creatively seem possible because he was still at it, refining his work, making calls, taking meetings, and figuring out what the audience might like. His passion for writing and creating worlds and characters never left him.
They say everyone is replaceable, but I dont believe it. I cant. Its impossible to think that anyone will ever come along that will walk through this world and write about it with the skill, joy, and abandon that Earl Hamner did. I cant imagine anyone but Earl bringing 58 million of us together to watch a family hold on through the worst of times because they had love and each other. Virginia treasure? Absolutely. And then some.
By Eugene Hickok
We are in the middle of the presidential election season. The American people are looking for a leader. It seems a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack.
It is nothing short of ironic that the Framers of our Constitution were not too terribly interested in political leadership when they gathered in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787. Indeed, they were a bit wary about it. Declaring independence and successfully prosecuting a war against Great Britain left the Framers understandably nervous about political leadership. Better to leave the elected members of the several state legislatures in charge of the day-to-day duties of governing. A strong executive is too inclined to become a too powerful executive, and they had had enough of that.
The debates that consumed that Philadelphia summer focused primarily on the character of what would become the national legislature the House of Representatives and the Senate with relatively little time spent discussing the makeup and function of a national executive.
In part, this was because there was a general but unspoken sense that George Washington reflected what the delegates were looking for in a chief executive. Added to that was an understanding of the job and purpose of the executive in popular government: to make sure the laws are enforced, be a firm commander-in-chief, and be an able spokesman for the country in the affairs of the world.
The Framers werent looking for leadership in a president. They were looking for competence and character. The word leadership does not even appear in the index to The Federalist, that collection of essays written in support of the proposed constitution.
The role of Chief Magistrate under the Constitution as the office is described often by the advocates of the Constitution does not invoke images of strong political leadership. It might more appropriately invoke the idea of a constitutional clerk. Someone making sure the government works.
***
But that was a long time ago, and the American people look to their president for so much more than a magistrate or clerk. They seek a solver of problems, a voice for those who feel they have no voice, a change agent, someone who will look out for them and their country, soothe their anxieties and provide them comfort during trying times. They want a president who will take care of them, make them feel better about themselves, and tell them what they want to hear.
The obvious problem with this, of course, is that isnt leadership and it certainly isnt the sort of leadership our Constitution provides.
Leadership isnt about telling people what they want to hear, its about telling them what they need to hear. Leadership isnt about feeding the anxieties and fears of the people; its about helping them understand how they can overcome those anxieties and fears.
Leadership isnt about playing with the emotions of the people; its about appealing to the intellect and aspirations of people. Most importantly, in this country, leadership is about adhering to the Constitution leadership under the Constitution, not in spite of it.
***
All of which brings us to the current state of political affairs. The leading candidates of both parties are talented, well-known figures who have demonstrated the ability to organize and mobilize men and women to their respective campaigns.
Secretary Clinton should be a stranger to no one in America, and that is both her greatest strength and greatest weakness. The people know her and are wary of her. She is competent, but is she trustworthy? Is she a hope for the future or a voice from the past?
Donald Trump is something else a celebrity and reality television star who knows how to work a room and generate ratings. He is someone who says what he thinks, which charms his supporters, even when he hasnt thought much about what he says. Build walls. Ban Muslims. Pull out of NATO. Consider nuclear weapons in Europe. Punish women for exercising dominion over the bodies. His cavalier tongue and self-assured manner are more than a threat to the Republican Party. They are threat to the United States of America.
There is time there is more than enough time to consider what leadership under our Constitution might and should look like. It is a sober and thoughtful and humble sort of leadership that understands the importance of helping America and the world see a path forward that might appeal to our aspirations and nourish our desire to look to tomorrow rather than dwell on the frustrations of today and the perceived injustices of the past.
There is time. More than enough time. Let us make the most of it.
I was on a ratty bus in Havana in January, one in a group of Virginians trying to get from the Episcopal diocese to a lunch date in Chinatown.
It was raining hard as we turned onto the Malecon, the oceanside boulevard that fronts the city, and we got to see the waves crashing hard against the seawall.
Water and foam spraying high, the ancient Morro Castle at the far end barely visible through the haze, it was like driving on a postcard.
Until we werent driving at all.
Then it was like being in Cuba, as real and authentic and mind-bogglingly logical as anything Id experienced in six previous trips there in recent years.
The bus broke, and the driver fixed it.
One minute, we were rolling down the street. Then we hit a bump and a part came loose. There was a horrible scraping sound, and we coasted to a stop by the curb.
If wed been in the U.S., the driver would have called for a tow truck and another bus, and we would have waited impatiently for our trip to resume, complaining every minute about missing lunch and being stranded and the general unpleasantness of being stuck together.
Only in Cuba, theres no one to call.
The driver, who knew there was no one to call, pulled a mechanics jumpsuit over his clothes and grabbed a box of spare parts he had both with him and went out in the rain and slid under the bus.
You could hear him down there, under the bus, rattling pieces of who knows what. He pushed on something that jolted the back seat, and the woman sitting there jumped a little and we all laughed.
A couple of minutes later, the driver slid back out, took off the jumpsuit and got back in the drivers seat. He said is fixed and pulled away.
Thats Cuba for you.
Step away from the politics and the angry rhetoric and the posturing, here and there, about nearly six decades worth of mutual animosity, and Cuba is a country full of people who have mastered what used to be the most American of traits: self-reliance and ingenuity.
Thats not apocryphal musing.
Thats not always the Cuba we get to see from the U.S., mind you, but its definitely the Cuba Ive been able to see in Cuba.
***
The images that more often come to mind, the ones that inform the questions Im most often asked by people who have never been there, are the ones weve seen for decades: boat people washing up in Florida; Fidel giving yet another angry speech denouncing the imperialists next door; old American cars and crumbling colonial-era buildings; ration cards and bare shelves.
When President Barack Obama went last month, we got to see somber pictures of world leaders negotiating important world leader stuff. Then we got to read stories about how nothing was ever really going to change anyway, because that deadly combination of still-angry exiles and Obama-hating Republicans wouldnt allow it.
When Gov. Terry McAuliffe went in January, a week before I did, the stories that came back were what youd expect from a state leader: meetings with dignitaries about trade and announcements about educational and cultural exchanges.
McAuliffe also found time for touristy stuff, too, because hes Terry McAuliffe, and a more fun governor Virginia has never known. Love him or hate him, you have to applaud his willingness to get a step away from the official side of diplomacy and slip into a funny pose by a statue of a sword-wielding pirate and get behind the wheel of one of those old American cars.
If only hed hit the gas and kept going, he might have seen what Ive been able to see in recent years: a vibrant, if somewhat rundown, country, full of people smart enough to believe what they see, not what they hear.
When the bus breaks, they fix it.
When all they can get is white rice and black beans and thighs and legs, they never ask what happens to all the breasts and wings. They cook what chicken they have, and eat, and get on with the day.
When the president of the United States says he wants to re-establish diplomatic relations, they get excited for a minute, then they go back to believing what they see, which is pretty much what theyve been seeing for a decade: slowly improving conditions that offer a hint, but not an outright promise, of better days to come.
Still, though, its not like Cuba is a desperate place.
Its actually friendly and inviting and not so bad, if you can figure out how to get there and then once you do, if you bother to get away from the tourist trap that is old town Havana.
Its the only country Ive ever visited where someone pegged me as an American, then thanked me for coming to visit. That happened in the fall of 2014, before the big Obama proclamation and that brief moment of hysteria that swept the island.
I was there for a few weeks that October working on a book. One morning, I was walking alone along the Malecon, and I was approached by a man with the same come-on you always get in a foreign country before someone starts asking you for your money.
Where you from? he asked in that friendly way that lets you know youre not getting away anytime soon.
Virginia, the United States, I said wearily. I know the question. Its always the prelude to a sob story of some sort, and thats a prelude to getting hustled.
You come all the way here just to visit? he asked.
Indeed, I mumbled, trying to avoid eye contact.
Thank you, he said. Then he walked away.
Now to be fair, Ive had plenty of Cubans try to hustle me, too. Its the nature of the world: those without hustle, those who look like me get hustled.
Last summer, when I was finishing my book, I took another walk alone along the Malecon its very meditative, walking so close to the ocean and a couple of cut-rate hustlers took me on a wonderful two-hour tour of part of old Havana Id never seen. They kept trying to ask me for money, but they couldnt get their story straight, and instead we wound up looking at street art, ducking into a bar for a quick drink it was 10 in the morning; I had a soda and looking at black market cigars offered by a shady woman in a small room.
It ended poorly, with them angrily fumbling through a desperate last attempt at a sales pitch that involved diapers and baby food but no sign of an actual baby and me disappearing into a crowd at a bus stop and then into a church, where I hid behind the devout for a few minutes.
But Ill excuse them the effort. It never hurts to ask.
And its not like an inept hustle is the only thing Ive seen in Cuba.
***
Ive traveled the country from one end to the other, top to bottom and side to side.
Ive seen the country by car, bus, and plane, and Ive traveled miles and miles on foot, doing there as I do here: just walking through neighborhoods, seeing whats to be seen.
Under the guise of research, Ive been able to visit people all over the island. Ive made casual acquaintances and good friends alike and listened to them all talk about life there, which sounded a lot like life here: family, jobs, what to do on the weekend.
They know about the U.S., the imperialist neighbor with the embargo.
But they also know about the U.S., the country full of people who love to come visit.
They do a good job of keeping the two separate.
We could learn something from that.
Cuba, the concept, is now and probably long will be a politically charged thing. Obama cant get a Supreme Court nominee nominated; its hard to believe hell pull off his Cuban dream before the years out.
But Cuba the place and Cuba the people, those are things worth another look.
Lunch in Chinatown, though, that you can pass on.
The day we went, we waited nearly two hours, orders to our two tables split mid-meal when a group of Chinese tourists came in and commanded the attention of the entire staff.
Friends of the owner, our waiter finally admitted after half our group had waited more than an hour for their food.
Some things, not even the bus driver can fix.
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A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
Trading on the world diamond market is slowing down after a very successful first quarter. However, this slowdown is not a reason for pessimism. It only means that the diamond market has finally found a point of balance, giving the entire industry a hope for a stable year.
Three months of growth
The results of the first quarter proved to be extremely successful for the entire industry. Demand for diamonds and jewelry, which was markedly low last year, started to recover. Polished goods in the categories of 0.3-1 ct went up in price by 1.4-6% in the first quarter, according to RapNet Diamond Index. Following the increase in demand, diamantaires began to stock up inventories fairly emptied after holiday sales. And mining companies, which earlier expected extremely modest results, reported sales surpassing all expectations.
According to experts, the major producers, De Beers and ALROSA raked in totally about $ 2 billion in rough sales during the first quarter. De Beers posted sales reaching $ 1.15 billion - almost $ 610 million in January and $ 545 million in February. Unlike De Beers, ALROSA holds trading sessions every month, but these are slightly leaner in volume. According to estimates provided by market sources, the Russian company sold $ 1.2-1.4 billion worth of rough goods in the first 3 months of 2016, carrying out approximately equal monthly sales.
The both companies posted sales, which were higher compared with one year ago - despite the fact that they adhered to a conservative pricing policy. ALROSA keeps prices unchanged since September 2015, when it reduced them by 8%. De Beers cut prices by 8-10% in February, bringing them in line with market expectations.
This conservative policy gave results. Data coming from trading platforms suggests that the average world price of diamonds not only stabilized, but also began growing. Since this growth was not underpinned by miners, it means that it is due to business activity in the secondary market and high demand at tenders. Market players say that, for example, rough diamonds sold at the recent tenders held by Petra and Rio Tinto were traded at premiums, sometimes reaching double digits.
The average price of diamonds imported to and exported from Antwerp points to an overall trend towards growth versus the end of 2015. In March, the average price of diamond imports to Antwerp was $ 122 per carat, while that of diamond exports - $ 111 per carat (the difference was due to the fact that some part of expensive rough remains in Antwerp for cutting). This is lower than in March 2015, but significantly higher than in the previous month. Diamond import prices registered in India show a similar trend.
Waiting period
At the same time, trade volumes declined in March both by value and volume compared with February. Both rough imports to and rough exports from Antwerp fell by an average of 20%. GJEPC has not yet published its data for March, but one can expect a comparable movement.
This slowdown, however, is not yet a reason for pessimistic forecasts. The diamond market has found a point of balance, and this assertion may be proved by at least two arguments. The first is about trade volumes. Although March sales were lower than February sales by volume, but they returned to the historical level of previous years, while they were significantly lower during the entire second half of last year.
Rising prices for diamonds may be taken as the second evidence. If the secondary market and tenders are clearing the way for premiums to diamond deals, it means that prices offered by rough producers are now on a fair level, giving the midstream an opportunity to earn more. And it is the low margin in the midstream, which is one of the factors breeding instability in the diamond pipeline.
Market players believe that the slowdown in business activities is due to completed restocking by diamond manufacturers. By the beginning of the year, there was some shortage of polished goods, especially in the fast-moving categories of 0.5-1 carats, so diamantaires were busily buying rough diamonds to replenish their inventories, one of them says. However, starting from the second quarter the market will see coming polished goods made from rough purchased in January. So, the market takes a break - you need to see if polished prices will begin to decline after new batches of polished diamonds will be offered for sale. According to RapNet, polished prices in March remained stable reflecting zero growth. April results will largely determine further developments.
In these circumstances, the best tactic for diamond mining companies would be to maintain sales at the current level for some time. Currently, rough sales are in sync with their historical levels and the market is unlikely to digest more. Further price cuts will devalue the inventories held by diamond manufacturers and accumulated in the first quarter. On the other hand, pushing prices up will once again deprive diamond cutters of their margins and opportunities to increase business activity.
In this regard, the report by Bloomberg that De Beers raised prices by 2% looks very disturbing. So far, there was no confirmation of this, however, and one of the sightholders, Smolensk-based Kristall even denied it, saying there was no changes in prices in the assortment of rough it bought from De Beers.
ALROSA will kick off a regular trading session for its long-term customers starting from April 12, 2016 and until now there is no information if the company plans to change its prices or offered amounts of rough. However, speaking at a conference for investors in late March, the president of ALROSA said that it was expected that the market would be stable and would not be subjected to corrections until the end of the year.
Elena Levina for Rough&Polished
Argentina, on Thursday and Friday of this past week, entered into signed settlement agreements totaling approximately $253 million with numerous defaulted bondholders, involving both institutions and individuals.
On Thursday, Argentina reached agreement with Fore Research and Management of New York City, for the Honero Fund, for $4.485 million plus Euros 67.54 million, aggregating approximately $80 million.
On Friday, Argentina reached agreement with 35 pension fund clients of Stone Harbor Investment Partners for $85 million and 38 million Euros, aggregating approximately $127 million. Additionally, that same day, Argentina reached agreement with 31 individual bond-holders for approximately $46 million.
All of these settlements were within the terms of the "Propuesta" published by Argentina on February 5, involving payment of 150% of principal to the bondholders. These settlements are subject to the lifting of the Injunction, which occurred on March 2 but which has been appealed by several parties.
The appeal will be heard in the Court of Appeals on Wednesday of this week, April 13. If the lifting of the Injunction is affirmed, it is the expressed intention of Argentina to carry out a $12.5 billion capital raise to pay all the settlements it has entered into since the first and seminal settlements with Montreux Partners and Dart Management on February 3 for $1.1 billion.
Settlements now aggregate approximately $8 billion.
"In my capacity as Special Master, with the responsibility for presiding over the conduct of settlement negotiations, I am extremely gratified that holders of approximately 90% of bonds at issue in the cases in the Southern District of New York have now reached settlements with Argentina. The ability of Argentina to consummate those settlements turns on the outcome of the appeal in the Court of Appeals," said Daniel A. Pollack, the Special Master presiding over settlement negotiations between the Republic of Argentina and holders of its defaulted Bonds.
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About 50 per cent of smartphone users in India plan to buy a new device within the first year as 5G ...
Fisherfolk count gains one year after amended fisheries code
Press Release
March 2, 2016
MANILA A year after Republic Act (RA) 10654, which amended the Fisheries Code of 1998, was passed, fisherfolk associations, civil society organizations and environmental NGOs are underlining the gains of the amended law in a press conference held today.
Senator Cynthia Villar, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Agriculture & Food and the primary author of RA 10654 or the Amended Fisheries Code, joined the groups and vowed continuous commitment towards enabling mechanisms for the strict implementation of the law.
I am happy to tell the world, together with the more than 1.5 million municipal fisherfolk, that our RA 10654 has ushered the end of rampant, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUUF). The urgency in addressing poverty and allowing our seas to heal was my mantra in fighting back the lobby of big commercial fishers and illegal fishers, said Senator Villar.
Villar also commended the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) for facilitating the formulation of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the law and the Comprehensive National Fisheries Industry Development Plan, which was crafted by stakeholders in aquaculture, marketing, post-harvest and capture, and which contain targets and action plans for development for the next five years. She also cited the creation of Community Fish Landing Centers for the national development of shellfish, crabs, and broodstock.
It is our common interest to make sure that there will be a continuous and healthy fishing industry in our country, and it can only be achieved if we prevent all forms of activities that jeopardize the sustainability of our resources, Villar said. I encourage all stakeholders to join us in making Philippine fisheries sustainable.
Villar led the Senate in voting unanimously for the ratification of the reconciled version of Senate Bill 2414 and House Bill 4536 that amended the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998. This came after the Philippines almost faced an export ban of fisheries product to the European Union (EU) for failing to address IUUF. According to BFAR, Philippine fish exports to the EU was valued at P9.4 billion (165 million euros) in 2013.
Fisheries and conservation NGOs, together with municipal fishers, used the EU warning as an opportunity to push for reforms to address the problems of the Philippine seas.
Amending the law is a victory. RA 10654 provides the framework on the shift from an open access regime, where everybody and anybody can extract from our fragile coastal and marine ecosystems, to a sustainable fisheries management regime, where strict regulations against destructive fishing practices are in place and strictly implemented, said Dennis Calvan, Executive Director of NGOs for Fisheries Reform (NFR), one of the organizations who pushed for the amendment.
Calvan added that the reason more than 75% of our fishing grounds are overfished, as mentioned by BFAR in the National Stock Assessment Program, is due mainly to the long decades of neglect in implementing the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998, leading to the destruction of coastal and marine resources.
A year into RA 10654, strengthened fisheries law enforcement is already happening, with almost weekly apprehensions of illegal fishers in our waters. Increased penalties against dynamite fishing, cyanide fishing and encroachment of commercial fishing vessels within the 15-kilometer municipal waters, are now being strongly enforced in the Burias-Ticao Pass in the Bicol Region. Some of the fish are coming back abundantly in our waters, said Miriam Belaos, a fisherfolk leader of Pantao Fisherfolks Association, based in Bicol.
The Amended Fisheries Code has strengthened the protection of the priority rights of municipal fishers by making the penalties deterrents to commercial fishing vessels plotting to conduct fishing activities inside municipal waters.
We won the first stage, but we still need to do more by implementing harvest control rules for fisherfolk to fish within the limits of the sea and implement strong traceability system to make sure that the seafood that we are eating are not illegally caught, said Vince Cinches, Oceans Campaigner for Greenpeace Philippines. The solution is very viable as shown by the recent success of the Sustainable Seafood Week, where major hotels and restaurants pledged to only source and serve traceable and sustainably caught fish.
Cinches also said that while the passing of the Amended Fisheries Law is a good start, he stressed the importance of this years Presidential elections to sustain the gains of the victory.
While the year 2015 has established the basic ingredients for healthy Philippine seas, it is important that the next President of our country puts ocean conservation at the heart of governance in order to address poverty and usher in truly inclusive national development, Cinches added.
Edukasyon.ph reaches out to OFW kids on Senior High
Press Release
March 3, 2016
MAKATI CITY With the recent educational shift to K-12, The Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) featured Edukasyon.ph to help the 27,500 students and their OFW families in searching for the right Senior High Schools for their children. Edukasyon.ph is a free website platform that gives choice, convenience, and advice on education to career options around the Philippines.
We understand how difficult it is for OFW parents to involve themselves in the education planning of their children especially now that theres Senior High School (SHS). Through Edukasyon.ph #SeniorHighDreams component, they will no longer feel disconnected from their childs education, Edukasyon.ph Executive Officer Linartes Viloria said.
This February, the CFO was able to circulate a memorandum addressed to the 40 PSO school principals based in 10 countries (Bahrain, China, East Timor, Greece, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates) with enclosed tutorial kits for teachers on understanding Edukasyon.ph's services and brochure for students on how using the website can aid them in their selection of senior high tracks, career guidance and advising.
Through the Edukasyon.ph website, parents and students can easily search for senior high ready schools and senior high offered tracks that are near their home location. They can also see which tuition fees are within their budget and what scholarship opportunities the educational institutions are offering.
#SeniorHighDreams is one of the newest features of Edukasyon.ph which aims to educate the parents and students about SHS, its tracks and specializations, and the Voucher Program. Not only that, Edukasyon.ph has comprehensive information on careers and scholarships.
Daughter of slain Lumad leader to UN rights expert: Impunity persists in the Philippines
By KARAPATAN
March 4, 2016
GENEVA, Switzerland Michelle Campos, daughter of slain Lumad leader Dionel Campos, and Karapatan human rights workers Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay and Karapatan-Caraga coordinator Dr. Naty Castro, met United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders Michel Forst in the sidelines of the 31st UN Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva, Switzerland on March 2.
In the said meeting, Campos narrated the September 1, 2015 killings in Lianga, Surigao del Sur, where her father, grandfather Datu Juvello Sinzo, and school director Emerito Samarca were killed before the whole community.
"Six months after the incident, not one of the three named perpetrators has been arrested. This is the kind of impunity that is perpetrated by the Aquino regime and the Armed Forces of the Philippines they do not arrest criminals in their ranks and among paramilitary groups. They even have drinking sprees with them," Campos said, recounting her relatives' experience on December 30, 2015 when they saw Loloy Tejero, one of the suspects at large in the Lianga massacre case, having a drinking spree with members of the 75th Infantry Battalion, Philippine Army.
Castro said that the more than 2,000 evacuees in Tandag, Surigao del Sur continue to suffer the consequences of such impunity. "It is worrisome that the issues of increasing military operations in Mindanao, including indigenous peoples' communities, and plunder of their ancestral lands remain low among the priority electoral issues among national candidates," she stated.
Palabay said Karapatan notes and appreciates Forst's report in the 31st UN Human Rights Council on the cases of attacks against human rights defenders in the Philippines delivered on March 3, 2016.
In the said report, Forst stated that he "considers the killings of Messrs. Emerito Samarca, Dionel Campos, and Bello Sinzo to be systematic of the aggressions suffered by human rights defenders in rural areas and indigenous communities in response to violations committed in the course of environmentally dubious mining operations, wide-spread development of monoculture plantations, land grabs and territorial disputes."
He expressed regrets that there were reports of further killings in Mindanao after the September 1, 2015 massacre in Surigao del Sur. He urged the Philippine Government to "take every possible measure to ensure that these extrajudicial killings do not remain in impunity, for fear of the potential encouragement a lack of justice would provide for any potential perpetrators of such acts in the future."
Forst also lamented the attacks against human rights workers of Karapatan, specifically the surveillance and intimidation of its members, as a result of their legitimate human rights activities and exercise of rights to freedom of expression and association.
Karapatan also submitted complaints on the following violations on human rights defenders to Forst:
a) Killing of Karapatan-Sorsogon spokesperson Teodoro Escanilla and peasant leader Sixto Calcena;
b) Trumped up criminal charges against teachers of the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development (ALCADEV) and indigenous people's leaders of MAPASU, more than fifty human rights defenders including Karapatan human rights workers, church and community leaders in Sarangani and General Santos City;
c) Threats, harassment and surveillance on leaders of Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (Courage) and Children's Rehabilitation Center (CRC);
d) Harassment and violation on the right of freedom of movement of former Rep. Liza Maza; and,
(Sitting L-R) Supt Erwin Portillo, Deputy Provincial Director for Operations of Leyte PPO, Colonel Francisco Mendoza Jr, Commander of the 802nd Infantry Brigade, Mayor Elmer Codilla and LtCol. Roberto Sarmiento during the signing of MOA declaring Kananga, Leyte as Stable Internal Peace and Security area.
Kananga declared as free from communist rebel infestation
By DPAO, 8ID PA
March 4, 2016
KANANGA, Leyte A former NPA stronghold in Northern Leyte declared as Stable Internal Peace and Secured area in a ceremonial signing of Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) in Kananga, Leyte on February 29, 2016.
The joint declaration was pursued upon the recommendation of the Philippine Armys 19th Infantry Battalion upon the legislation of Resolution No. 20R.14-791 by the 20th Sangguniang Bayan of Kananga, Leyte.
Signatories to the MOA were Colonel Francisco Mendoza Jr., Brigade Commander of the 802nd Infantry (Peerless) Brigade, Senior Superintendent Franco Simborio, Director of Leyte Police Provincial Office represented by Superintendent Erwin Portillo, and Mayor Elmer Codilla and witnessed by Lieutenant Colonel Roberto Sarmiento, the Commanding Officer of the 19th Infantry Battalion, Chief Inspector Ricky Reli, the Chief of Police of the Municipality of Kananga and Vice-Mayor Macario Lumangtad Jr.
Previously, the 19th Infantry Battalion declared 15 Leyte towns as Stable Internal Peace and Security areas. These towns are Matag-ob, Merida, Palompon, Tabango, Barugo, Babatngon, San Miguel, Leyte, Pastrana, Tolosa, Dagami, Calubian, Sta. Fe, Alangalang and Tunga.
The aforesaid towns were declared Stable Internal Peace and Security because the actual threat of the Communist Terrorist Movement (CTM) is already downgraded and is no longer significant to influence the residents.
Col. Mendoza is optimistic that the declaration will further attract the influx of investors to establish business in an area that has environment of peace.
There is a lot to be learned from Mondays events at the Matautu wharf now that the immediate danger has passed and the fire and smoke have disappeared.
The very visible black tank however is a reminder of the alarming fire in the heart of Apia, the loss of life of a maintenance worker and the subsequent hospitalization of a number of firemen.
It could have been so much worse.
And while we are grateful the fire was eventually contained and we have heard measured responses from the C.E.O. and senior management of the Petroleum Products Supplies (P.P.S.), now is definitely time to review this organization.
Already the Prime Minister has fired the first salvo by questioning the qualifications and the lack of training by staff.
A statement by the P.P.S. Managing Director, Fanene Samau Etuale Sefo, that the work at the tanks was legal and there was a permit for it does not explain the chain of events on Monday.
In fact it raises even more questions.
Papalii Niko Lee Hang, the Minister of Works, Infrastructure and Transport.
who is responsible for the Matautu wharf, is struggling to make logical sense of what happened.
His comments reflect the astonishment of many of the countrys population.
I mean, at the petrol station you cant use your cell phone and you cant smoke but these things are minor.
But they weld the tank with fuel in it its just ridiculous and doing it on top of a fuel tank its a time bomb, it can explode anytime, he said.
As a businessman whose family own and operate a petrol station, the Minister is doubly aware of the importance of safety procedures.
He has also taken a shot at the Samoa Ports Authority inferring that the security at the gate of the facility was negligent.
Meanwhile the Fire and Emergency Services Association (F.E.S.A.) staff have already pointed to a lack of equipment for such a huge emergency.
A senior firefighter, Kereta Samia with some 10 years experience has said training and equipment are badly needed by their organisation.
With the Monday incident, I wished that we had had a ladder truck here in Samoa, so that there would be no problem trying to put the foam into the fuel tank because those ladders can go 30 meters high which is higher than the fuel tanks.
And while he is no doubt correct, the fact is that the accident should never have occurred at all.
Which brings us back to some pertinent questions for, and about P.P.S.
Who of senior management has specific training, qualifications and experience in their dangerous products?
Have these people been appointed simply from a management rather than a technical perspective?
How many of their staff have had specific and ongoing training in the handling of fuel?
Do new staff undergo an orientation when they join the company?
Do general maintenance workers understand the properties of the products they are working with?
Is P.P.S. in a partnership with an oil company to acquire the knowledge they need in the handling of fuel?
Are management all their workers aware of occupational health and safety regulations in their industry?
How robust are these regulations and how often are they reviewed?
When were the regulations last updated, tested and audited?
Does P.P.S. get audited by an outside organisation to ensure their safety procedures are viable?
How often does that happen?
Thirty years ago there was a site full of fuel tanks in downtown Auckland known as the Tank Farm.
Now replaced by trendy restaurants and bars, fire fighters predicted that if it ever went up, the C.B.D, and as far out as Onehunga would be obliterated.
The point is, the work on the tanks may have authorise with a permit and been legal but a piece of paper and the law was not enough to ensure the safety of one mans life.
Dear Editor
The article Divine warning? Or is it just a hoax? by Pai Mulitalo Ale 07 April 2016, reported on Professor Morris (Department of Religious studies of Victoria University, Wellington) who queried regarding the recent stigmata phenomena.
Reminds me one of the genius Albert Einstein (A.E.) recorded conversation with one of his professors at his fairly young age. The professor had questioned the existence of God, for there must have been much evil happenings encountered back then, up to the point where he concluded that God does NOT exist!?
Then AE corrected his limited conclusion by asking questions regarding the truth about cold and darkness whether they exist? The professor with less hesitation answered that of course both cold and darkness exist where to his surprise A.E. corrected him that both cold nor darkness were never in existence. But they only appear to exist mainly due to the absence of heat and light respectively.
However Professor Morris does state couple of sound notions though:
First, that it is extremely unusual for Stigmata to occur on someone outside of the Roman Catholic Church and
Second for Stigmata it sure is a breach of nature and it doesnt make any sense? Whereby both Toaipuapuaga and her dad Rev. Opapo rightly state; I know many people dont believe me but that is okay. I feel that my mission is to spread the word of God. We will all one day be judged and if this is how God sends his message and vision to Samoa, who are we to question it? respectively.
It is my sincere hope that both Toaipuapuaga and her dad would carry on with their humble hearted attitudes witnessing Gods will as shared through them. Believing in Him that with their personal admittance that He and him He alone is the rightful judge and He will come in His own good time as promised. Therefore we should not be too worried after fulfilling our part to the best of our ability as He will do the rest, a ea?
On the same incident, Lanuola Tusani Tupufias article Stigmata is a miracle 03 April 2016 reports on our Prime Ministers realistic view of the situation. Knowing him to be a renowned realistic person he can also be referred to as a faithful one but to a lesser extent. However I believe he had done a good job with his stated facts being in line with the TRINITY Gods Church documented occurrence.
Unlike Pastor Unoi as reported by Pai Mulitalo Ale on the same day in her article Pastor cautions against claims, who seems to be a faithful chap, yet he is one hell of a limited Sola Scripture person!
A simple question for the poor soul though, I wonder whether he can point to us which Holy Bible he is referring on for the word of God he is talking about? For I know the Jews and many other sects now days are following the Koran.
Christianity has two sets of the so-called Holy Bible; one has 66 books while the other one has 73 books. Now Im not too sure of which the Mormonism and the Jehovahs Witness comes first, but I know for a fact they both have their own sets of holy books. So which one he is talking about?
Anyhow with all these phenomena occurrences in our days it should call to remind us all of one of Apostle Pauls famous testimonies of his times recoded in the Holy Bible (and I recommend that 73 books one for that was a properly approved one after canonising by Him within his Mystical Body, i.e. His founded Church. To whom He had given His Authority doing so some 300 years after Christ ascend to Heaven) that there is nothing new on this earth accepts Jesus Christ where at the fulfilment of His times, he then gets to be born into our world for our salvation.
And with this Samoan old saying, e leai se laau e falala fua, there and then I urge you Samoa lets not waste our time asking the why question? But rather the what question, as in -what shall I or what shall we do, fulfilling our individual divine calling! Of course we are all weak humans, and who is any better? But HE rather uses our weakness instead of our fia poko seen most of the time, a ea? I myself am forever wishing that He remains with me all time to the day he wishes for me to end my journey in this preliminary life. I get to gutu oso on HIM sometimes and wish for me to come now ua ta le lava lenei olaga faigata, but never mind He has given and He shall be the only one to take it away.
Having said so I wish to remind you all who have doubts about our Mr. Prime Minister friend with your aimless speculation that somehow he had much manipulative authority on our nations recent General Elections, that God is well and alive. I accept our Elected One Party Parliament mirroring on how God calls on Abraham when he needs to form up a nation for HIMself. With our 100% Samoan Matai forum and its feminine representatives reminds me of how God calls on His Mother Mary at the fulfilment of his time.
I wouldnt worry too much of the Melchizedek divided forum for not only that this Melchizedek figure has; (a) limited information of his heritage line in the Church Archives but (b) they these Melchizedeks wishful, are still having that Eve and Adams finger pointing attitude now a days.
Now to you our nations parliamentarians I wonder whether you may have an appetite to reconsider that very limited outcome by the 2010 Commission of Enquiry asked to review our countrys constitutionwith regarding its representation of our Almighty God as per its preamble and Article 11 -Freedom of Religion? The notion was recommended by the 2002 National Council of Churches annual meeting and our current Prime Minster accepted it on that same day.
Pastor Unoi does not know anything about it as his sect is not included in the National Council of Churches -for whatever reason only God knows? Hope its nothing to do with personal greed while aimlessly and vaguely using poor Gods name fulfilling his purpose?
I hear Toaipuapuaga mention something along that notion.
And I have NO doubt that that is of the TRINITY GODs wish for our (Sacred Centred) SAMOA Nation which is Founded on HIM nowdays to stand out with confidence and ripple out such TRUTHS of HIS Almighty goodness to the whole wide world, dont you agree?
May you have a blessed Sunday, Samoa.
Atalii fanau le au a le loomatua Taufusi
Construction of three hydro power plants
Cabinet has awarded the contract to Pernix Group/MAP JV company for the construction of three new hydro power plants at Faleaseela, Fausaga-Tafitoala and Faleata.
The tender for the projects was advertised for public interest and seven companies submitted applications of bids.
An assessment of the tenders was conducted by the Sub Committee according to the tender requirement before a recommendation was submitted to Cabinet for approval.
Sweet Potato Weevil Workshop
Cabinet has approved the participation by Samoa at the Sweet Potato Weevil Workshop in Lae, Papua New Guinea on 18 22 April 2016.
The workshop is an opportunity for key technical experts to learn more about weevils so they are able to organise similar surveys in their own home countries.
Samoas participation is an invitation by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community for Pacific countries, especially countries included in the Integrated Pest Management and Integrated Crop Management Project.
Sweet potato is not only a good crop, in terms of healthy eating, it is valued by Samoa in terms of food security as it can be grown/farmed at any time and can survive natural hazards like cyclones.
The workshop will enable Samoa to meet with international partners and organisations to secure funding for this project.
Samoas National IPM/ICM Project Coordinator, Susuga Aleni Uelese is attending the workshop.
World Banks Macroeconomics and Fiscal Management Global Practice
Cabinet has approved the participation by Samoas representative at the World Banks Macroeconomics and Fiscal Management Global Practice in America from 28 March 28 June 2016. This is a special assignment appointment under the World Bank Group and the Ministry of Finance under the auspices of the Banks Global Secondment Programme.
The programme is conducted every year and provides ample opportunity for participants and World Bank employees to share knowledge and experiences.
The Ministry of Finance Principal Debt Management Officer, Peresitene Kirifi is representing Samoa at the programme.
Human Rights Protection Party Manifesto 2016 2021
Cabinet has reviewed the Human Rights Protection Party manifesto 2016 2021.
The manifesto announces the development agenda the HRPP will implement over the next five years.
The HRPP has consistently won the right to lead Government for 34 years, since 1982, and has again won the recent general election in March.
The overriding goal of this manifesto is to further advance the social and economic wellbeing of the Samoan people and create employment opportunities for our young people.
Successful implementation of the development agenda outlined in this manifesto will lead directly to achieving a higher and sustainable quality of life for our people.
Some challenges encountered by Samoa in the last five years included the global financial crisis and the slowdown in the Chinese economy in 2012 adversely affected the ability to secure markets for our exports which directly impacted on the Yazaki Samoa. Cyclone Evan that struck the country in the same year, and caused significant damage and incurred substantial losses to key economic infrastructure such as roads and bridges, agriculture, tourist facilities and personal properties, was another challenge.
A number of positive outcomes were also achieved such as:
Samoas graduation to Middle Income Country status;
Hosting of the Third UN SIDS Conference;
Hosting of the 2015 Samoa Commonwealth Youth Games;
All Blacks Manu Samoa Game;
RSE Scheme extended to Australia;
Acquisition of PFL;
Climate Change agreement;
At the sector level, there were also significant achievements which include macroeconomic performance, education, health, agriculture, community development, senior citizen pension scheme, justice and infrastructure services such as water and sanitation, energy, transport and communication.
HRPP development priorities for 2016 2021 include employment creation, education, health, agriculture, tourism, youth development, community development, climate change, justice and infrastructure services.
Fisheries study tour for Pacific Ministers
Cabinet has approved the attendance by Minister of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries, Afioga Laaulialemalietoa Polataivao Leuatea Schmidt at the Fisheries Study Tour by the New Zealand Government for the Pacifics Ministers for Agriculture and Fishery on 9 21 April 2016.
The study tour will provide participants with the opportunity to view New Zealands seafood sector and fisheries management system. This system is hoping to provide a number of useful lessons for the Pacific.
The Member of Parliament for Salega East Olo Fiti Vaai claims independent members are still waiting for the Prime Minister for a decision about the status of non-H.R.P.P. members.
And while many have lamented the demise of the two party system, Olo has pointed out that it is not all bad news is M.P.s have the courage of their convictions to vote according to the validity of an idea rather than stick with the party line.
According to the law, eight members of parliament are needed to form an Opposition Party.
And so Olo has pointed out that this means there is no more Tautua Party because three members falls far short of the minimum number to form a party.
We are still waiting to see if the prime minister will decide to recognize us in any way or carry on as a one-state party, said Olo.
He said it seems like parliament is going back to the beginning of independence, when matais only, had the right to vote.
You speak for your own constituency, and you speak independently he said.
He claims there will be fewer and less vigorous debates because there are no other political parties in parliament.
This he believes that was a strength that they had in previous parliaments. Debates will be weak because we now have a one-state party government.
The lack of a formal Opposition party will be something new for the country and for members, Olo said.
No one today was there during the time when Samoa had a one-state party.
But he was philosophical about making it work.
If they did it back in those days, why cant we do it now?
But the M.P.s should have the courage to debate what is good for this government, without thinking which party they belong to, said Olo.
Olo said all Members of Parliament should be free to talk; if an idea is wrong then they should oppose it but if its good, then support it.
We still have to debate with the Cabinet Ministers and the Associate Ministers.
As for the new decision by the Prime Minister to have only one associate minister for each portfolio, Olo said he supports the decision.
This is also a challenge for the Associate Ministers. They should do their jobs because there is a big possibility that they can be replaced by the other M.P.s.
Olo also said that with the decision to have only one associate minister per Ministry, they are no longer part of Parliamentary Committees but are simply Members of Parliament.
A brother who has been an unselfish chief caregiver for his sister for six years is now getting help thanks to the Samoa Victims Support Group (S.V.S.G.).
Mr Avia is now under the Caregivers Training offered by the Samoa Victims Support Group.organisation.
Avia thanked the S.V.S.G. for their help. He said he has learnt different things from them, especially how to prevent his sister Stella from getting bed sores and helping to prevent her getting sick.
He has realized that there are lots of different techniques of how to handle people with disabilities.
He also thanked the S.V.S.G. for their help and support in donating a wheelchair to help him move Stella around and also to take her to church.
It is very hard to find people like Sefo Avia who does his work out of love and compassion.
Growing up seeing his mother looking after his baby sister, Avia now finds himself in her role.
Being a single male of 45 years old, Avia said he thanks God for the many years he has had to enable him his life to care for his sick sister.
Avia is the third of eight siblings, four brothers and five sisters.
Stella Avia is the baby of the family, she is 26 years of age she has suffered from epilepsy and cerebral palsy since she was 7 years old.
Mr Avia said that in that year, his sister was confined to her bed.
She couldnt walk, sit, eat or talk.
I saw how my mother cared for her when she was still thats when I learned how to do the same work, said Mr Avia.
And when his mother passed away in 2010, Mr Avia has continued the care for his baby sister.
Avia said the hardest part of his work was the problem that she was unable to talk.
But he said that caring for her for many years, helped him learn how to communicate with her.
I have learned to know when she is hungry and when she wants to go somewhere, he said.
I bathe her two times a day and I also cut her hair short because its hot, he added.
Avia said his normal routine is the same every morning.
He prepares her breakfast and bathes her before her afternoon nap and the same thing when she wakes up later.
I make sure she has three meals a day, said Avia.
The most challenging part of my job is preparing her food.
Avia said he needs to make sure everything is clean, blend her food blender and feed her.
It takes two hours feeding her, he added.
And have there been times when he felt like giving up he was asked?
Avia said no because his mother never gave up on of any of them.
I dont think theres been any day that I would like to have had to myself or when I have been tired of caring for her. I just pity her because of her condition and its my job to make her feel the life that we have is enjoyable.
Avia said he thanked God for giving him the courage every day to do what he loves to do and its because of his loving care of Stella, she hasnt had to receive any medical treatment.
He said he only buys liquid panadol for her if she gets a fever, but he has never had to take her to the hospital for any other treatment.
Avia believes that his sister is much healthier because of his care..
Avias cousin Selepa Esera, praised her cousins work.
She said she admires him because of the kind of man he is and the kind of love that he has.
I cant remember if theres been any time I have seen him doing what he wants and not caring for Stella, said Ms Esera. He is one of the most shy guys that I have ever known and I couldnt be more grateful for the work that he does, she added.
Ms Esera said every day she gets to see her cousin doing his work happily.
I never hear him complain, she said.
Ms Esera said sometimes she helps out her cousin by feeding her but Stella eats slowly and angrily because she knows her brother is not feeding her.
She is very close to her brother because all he does is be with her every day, added Ms Esera.
Senior firefighter, Kereta Samia did not think twice about his own life but he was more concerned about the lives of the public who might have been in danger.
As a senior firefighter, Samia said he believes he can deal with any dangerous situation that comes his way.
I didnt think about the fact that where we were, was very risky that day, because our first job was to try and put out the fire.aid Samia.
Samia said what he was worried about were the underground fuel pipes and the concern that if the fire reached them, the whole town could explode.
And it would cost many lives.
After being in the force for more than 10 years, Samia said this is the most dangerous situation he has ever been in.
We have worked on big fires, especially house fires and forest fires but this is the first incident that involved fuel, he added.
Being around the fuel tank at Matautu, Samia said he was aware he could be facing injury or death but God gave him the courage to work with his boys to put out the fire in time to contain the greater danger to Apia.
He also said firefighters have been taught to be alert at any time for any kind of fire ant to be prepared to deal with it.
The surrounding area of the fuel tank, he said was really hot, but they were partly shielded by the tank cover that had blown off.
We were standing five meters from the fuel tank and that was the closest we could get.
I couldnt ask for more from God but to praise his name in gratitude that we were spared from the danger and that we managed to contain and eventually put out the fire.
In light of this particular incident, Samia confirmed there is an urgent need for specific training and relevant equipment.
He said that while he was in Japan for three months, they had undertaken training on a ladder truck.
With the Monday incident, I wished that we had had a ladder truck here in Samoa, so that there would be no problem trying to put the foam into the fuel tank because those ladders can go 30 meters high which is higher than the fuel tanks.
Samia is a father of two children. He is 35 years of age and he is from the village of Fagalii Uta.
It was a proud moment for the National University of Samoa (N.U.S) as one of their staff members has completed the highest form of qualification.
Staff member, Edna Temese-Ualesis recent completion of her PhD in Philosophy, is an example of the universitys need to push for higher qualifications for their staff as well as students.
In a press conference, Professor Asofou Soo the Vice Chancellor spoke of the universitys role to pursue higher quality education for their students.
Our university is now 32 years old and just like all other universities around the world, one of our goals is to provide quality education, he said.
Which follows that, One of the important aspects of the teaching part of our role as a university, is to also have well qualified teachers and staff to deliver our courses and programmes.
Here at the university we have three categories of programmes: we have a programme for plumbing, welding and trades; theres a Foundation programme that prepares students for university studies; and finally we have the Higher Education programmes, he said.
Our preparation specifically for the Higher Education programmes means that we have to keep improving the qualifications of our staff.
But staff quality has not always been at the present level.
Back when we started in 1984, none of our staff members held a doctorate qualification; now we have a total of 16 who do, Asofou said.
Aside from the 16 that we have, there are 10 more studying at the doctorate level with a few finishing at the end of this year and the rest finishing the following year.
Thats a continuous improvement effort to keep moving forward in terms of qualifications of our staff.
For Ms. Ualesi the road was not an easy one.
As an N.U.S. student from years ago, I along with a few other students didnt get scholarships to go to Fiji, Australia or New Zealand so we stayed back, she said.
We knew that there was still hope where we could apply overseas; I then made it to Japan where I attained another degree and when I returned I began teaching here at the university.
I knew that I had to pursue higher qualifications, Im thankful that the government of Japan gave me a chance to get a masters degree and from there I stayed on to get a PhD.
Ms. Ualesis road to excellence is a testimony of hope for students and staff to never give up pushing for higher qualifications.
Answers about wharf security, safety procedures and simple common sense are at the heart of information being sought by the new Minister of Works, Infrastructure and Transport.
Any work that involves fire around one of the biggest fuel tanks at the Matautu wharf is a time bomb waiting to explode is the view of Minister Papalii Niko Lee Hang who added his concerns over the storage tank fuel that exploded last week.
The Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi had also pointedly raised questions about the qualifications of those employed by Petroleum Products Supplies (P.P.S.).
A 31 year old employee of P.P.S. died as a result of the tank explosion.
During an interview with the Samoa Observer, the Minister who is also responsible for the Matautu wharf said he does not understand the logic of work involving fire and a fuel tank.
I dont understand why there was welding work at the tanks when there was fuel in them, Papali'i said.
I mean, at the petrol station you cant use your cell phone and you cant smoke but these things are minor.
But they weld the tank with fuel in it its just ridiculous and doing it on top of a fuel tank its a time bomb, it can explode anytime.
While the Minister is still puzzled about the maintenance work, he said there is negligence the part of the Samoa Ports Authority who are responsible for those who come in and out at the wharf.
I dont think there was any security at the time (to ask) who these people are and what kind of work they would be doing at the wharf, said Papalii.
They should have known that no work should be done when there is fuel in the tank. I was shocked when I heard a loud bang it was like an earthquake. Then I saw something blowing up in the air and the tank was on fire with smoke coming out of it.
Speaking to the media on Thursday, Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi also questioned whether the P.P.S. employees were qualified to do such work at the tanks.
There should be someone who is trained in this kind of work, said Tuilaepa.
That is the unknown mystery. Is the worker who did the welding qualified because that kind of work requires trained people who understand how to do this kind of work and we dont know about the workers who did it.
According to P.P.S. Managing Director, Fanene Samau Etuale Sefo, the work at the tanks was legal and there was a permit for it.
Police and expertise from Australia are conducting an investigation into the oil tanks and the fire on Monday.
Effective 29 April the maximum authorised transit draught will be set at 11.74 m (38.5 ft) tropical fresh water.
Vessels loaded to draughts over 11.74 m (38.5 ft) on or before April 1, 2016, will have this draught restriction waived for transit, subject to safety considerations. Vessels loaded after 1 April 2016 will have to comply with the draught restriction. Draught restrictions will be implemented in 15 cm (six-inch) decrements at a time, with each restriction announced at least four weeks in advance.
The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) will continue to monitor and manage the water levels. The Panama Canal will eliminate these draught restrictions as soon as Gatun Lake level returns to normal.As always, these are temporary and preventive measures to ensure the continuous and safe operations of the canal. The ACP said it remained fully committed to responsible management of its water resources and the protection of the waterway.
Press Release
April 10, 2016 BONGBONG MARCOS TO AFP--BE TRANSPARENT ON ABU SAYYAF ENCOUNTER Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos Jr. today called on the Armed Forces of the Philippines to disclose the details of the encounter in Basilan with Abu Sayyaf forces which led to the killing of at least 18 soldiers and wounding of more than 50 others Saturday. Marcos said the entire nation and most especially the families of the slain soldiers deserve full transparency in the military operation against the international terrorist group. "We need a full picture of the encounter. We should not hide these details. The Filipino people and most especially the families of the soldiers killed and wounded deserve to know the whole truth," he said. Marcos expressed concern about the silence of the AFP on the operation. Reports have shown that after the Western Mindanao Command's report of 22 soldiers injured early Saturday, no official statement has been released about the clashes. "Here were go again. We are again in the dark of what happened," he said noting of the country's experience with the ill-fated Mamasapano operation which led to the killing of 44 members of the Special Action Force. It took several weeks before police officials made a public pronouncement on who ordered the operation. Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and AFP Chief of Staff Hernando Iriberri were said to have flown to Zamboanga City and Basilan province early Sunday to meet with ground commanders. Marcos added the AFP has to make public who led the operation and the exact purpose of the operation in an area controlled by the armed group. "Who was in charge of the operation? What was the exact objective of the operation? We need answers because this is something that strikes a chord with every Filipino because of the Mamasapano incident a year ago," he said. According to reports, the 10-hour firefight happened Saturday, a day after Italian hostage, former missionary Rolando del Torchio, was released by Abu Sayyaf. AFP sources were quoted as saying that the government forces were deployed to hunt down Abu Sayyaf commander Isnilon Hapilon who has been involved in several terrorist attacks. Local media reports also indicated that about 100 Abu Sayyaf fighters were involved in the clash with government troops. Four soldiers had reportedly been decapitated.
Press Release
April 10, 2016 LET ALL CANDIDATES TAKE DRUG TEST--BONGBONG MARCOS Vice presidential candidate Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos Jr. today said he is willing to undergo drug test to show his sincerity to fight illegal drugs. Marcos made the statement after various youth groups had asked presidential and vice presidential candidates in the upcoming May elections to voluntarily submit themselves to a drug test to show they are really serious in fighting illegal drugs. "I have always been always open to it. I am willing to undergo a drug test to show my sincerity in the fight against illegal drugs," he said. He also challenged his fellow candidates to take a drug test to set a strong message to the electorate that they will really fulfill their promise to fight illegal drugs in the country. "Everyone must take a drug test because that's the only way we can show to the voters that we will indeed fight illegal drugs," he pointed out. Earlier, groups such as the National Youth Coordinating Council on Drug Abuse Prevention (NYCCDAP) and National Youth Affairs on Drug Abuse Prevention and Education (NYADAPE) said that taking the drug test will send a strong message to the youth that the candidates do really take their vow to fight illegal drugs seriously. "Our next leaders should be in a position to discuss drug use, and there can be no better way than to set an example for everyone," NYADAPE President Leo Archie Andes III said in a statement. Reports made by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency showed that more than 8,600 barangays in the country are affected by the drug menace with Metro Manila Manila having the highest rate of being drug-affected with 92 percent of its barangays affected, followed by Southern Tagalog at 33 percent. Marcos added that if elected vice president, he will push for the revival of the death penalty for drug lords. "I am principally against death penalty but I would take exception on big time drug peddlers and drug lords because of the menace they havoc on society, especially the youth, the future of our country," he said. The senator also said law enforcement agencies must be well-equipped to target not just small time drug peddlers but zero in on big-time drug pushers and their leaders to make the war on illegal drug trade more effective. "We have a serious drug problem because mainly of corruption and poor law enforcement and we need to weed our system out of those involved in illegal drug trade especially in our law enforcement agencies and then those in the service should be well-equipped to go after drug pushers and their principals," he said. But more importantly, he pointed out, the support of the family and community should be strengthened as it is crucial in the fight versus illegal drugs. "The fight against illegal drugs is not only the work of the police or law enforcement agencies, the family and community also play a crucial role. Everyone should work together to give our children the proper guidance to enable them to fight the lure of illegal drugs," he stressed.
AFTER FINAL SC DECISION, POE SAYS NOTHING CAN STOP HER NOW
SORSOGON--After the Supreme Court affirmed its earlier ruling saying Sen. Grace Poe is qualified to run for president, the race frontrunner said nothing can stop her now.
"Parang nawalan na ng kadena ang ating pangangampanya at tuloy-tuloy na po," Poe said during a visit to Sorsogon, home province of her running mate, Sen. Francis Escudero.
Poe was reacting to the High Court ruling released earlier today denying with finality the motions for reconsideration of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) and other petitioners. The SC said "no substantial arguments were presented to warrant the reversal of the questioned decision."
"Nagbibigay lang ito ng affirmation na naging malakas at tama ang desisyon ng Korte Suprema. Kami ay nagpapasalamat sa hustisyang ibinigay nila," she said.
In the event that she is elected, the senator said she is confident that with the SC decision she will hurdle questions on her citizenship that could be raised before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), which handles disqualification cases against an incumbent president.
"Matibay ang naging desisyon. Sa tingin ko ay kahit na kuwestiyunin pa nila sa PET, malakas ang laban natin," Poe said.
Poe, the lone independent presidential aspirant, leads all surveys as the voters' top choice for president. In the March 15-20 Pulse Asia report, 28 percent of voters choose Poe as the next president, while the March 30 Bilang Pilipino-SWS survey showed 34 percent of Filipinos choosing the senator.
"Para sa akin kasi ang pinaka-tinitingnan ng ating mga kababayan higit sa lahat ay talagang plataporma naman ng mga tumatakbo at 'yung karakter ng mga lider," she said.
Last March 8, the Supreme Court voted 9-6 to grant Poe's petition to reverse the COMELEC's decision that effectively disqualified Poe from the presidential race. The High Court said the poll body acted with grave abuse of discretion when it cancelled Poe's certificate of candidacy on questions of citizenship and residency.
'Crushing Abu Sayyaf is this president's last job, the next president's first'
Include Abu Sayyaf problem in next pres'l debate - Recto
Finishing off the Abu Sayyaf is this president's last job and the next president's first.
They have bedeviled four presidencies and, if not stopped, is on track to confront the fifth Malacanang occupant in their almost quarter-of-a-century of mayhem and violence.
The next presidential debate should include a question on how to end Abu Sayyaf's terrorism and stop their expansion as an ISIS franchisee.
What is clear is that ending their terror has become an important part of the job description of the next president.
What is also clear is that Abu Sayyaf's predatory attacks have been reduced by the current administration.
Lately, however, they have gone on a kidnapping spree, snatching 10 Indonesian fishermen, bringing the number of their hostages to 14. The other four are Dutch Ewold Hurn, Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall, and Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad.
Before their hostages become a United Nations of kidnap victims, they must be stopped. We know the lessons of the past: Ransom payments fuel more kidnappings and finance more terror activities.
We commend the bravery of our fallen soldiers. We condole with their loved ones, but above all, let us assure them that justice will be served soon.
A 220-pound rock from outer space has got the earthlings fighting.
Its not just any rock but the famous Fukang meteorite, a sparkly slab of greenish crystals that is said to be one of the greatest space rocks ever discovered. Exactly who owns it is the subject of a federal lawsuit filed in San Francisco that reads like an Isaac Asimov sci-fi tale.
A Novato man says its rightfully his. A Massachusetts couple say they paid the Novato man $425,000 for it and that its rightfully theirs.
The Novato man says he canceled the sale when he found out the Massachusetts couple were running a rock museum in Maine. The Massachusetts couple say the Novato man canceled the sale because of sellers remorse, when he figured he let the $425,000 rock go on the cheap.
Meanwhile, a New York rock broker and two Kansas rock polishers say theyre entitled to a piece of the action, too.
The tale begins 4 billion years ago, give or take an eon, when the meteorite plummeted to earth and landed in the Gobi Desert of China. In 2000, it was discovered, and pieces of it began to be sold to well-heeled rock hounds, one of whom was Stephan Settgast of Novato, who said he bought a 220-pound slice of it in 2004.
In 2014, court documents say, Settgast agreed to sell the slice to Lawrence Stifler and Mary McFadden of Brookline, Mass., who paid him $425,000 through a New York meteorite middleman.
But after the rock polishers, Keith and Dana Jenkerson of Osawatomie, Kan., who had been hired to spiff up the meteorite for its new owners, said they thought it was worth perhaps $1 million, Settgast decided he wanted his rock back, the Massachusetts couple say.
Settgast went to the Jenkersons studio and, while they were away at a rock show, entered the premises and took back the meteorite. It was a clear case of meteorite-napping, said the spurned buyers.
Settgast maintained he was reclaiming the rock because the couple planned to put it on public display at their under-construction museum in Maine. Settgast said that violated the terms of the sale. Stifler and McFadden said a no-museum promise was never part of the deal. They say Settgast has their rock and their money, too.
Settgast sued in federal court in February to invalidate the sale and keep the rock. Stifler and McFadden countersued in March to get their hands on the rock.
Nobody knows what a one-of-a-kind meteorite is worth, according to Settgasts lawyer, Curt Edmondson.
Its not like its a Toyota, he said.
Edmondson denied that Settgast stole back the meteorite or planned to keep the money. He said Settgast had never formally turned over the meteorite, despite being paid for it, and was entitled to take it back because it was still his.
Its not like he went to Kansas and jimmied the lock on the back door and put a 220-pound rock under his arm, Edmondson said.
Court documents suggest one reason the rock polishers valued the rock at $1 million is that they believed they were entitled to 5 percent of its value for their services. They were seeking $50,000 for spiffing it up, instead of the $20,000 they had been promised and eventually accepted.
Rock hounds say rare meteorites of the Fukang variety, known as pallasites, are beautiful and valuable but not particularly scientifically significant.
This kind of meteorite has been studied and has little new to tell us, said Paul Doherty, senior scientist at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. It came from the core-mantle boundary of an asteroid. We have studied lots of meteorites of this kind. It doesnt need to be in a museum. If it was a Martian meteorite, that would be different.
Settgast, Stifler and McFadden did not return calls seeking comment. A federal judge has scheduled a hearing on the dispute for June 29.
Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF
San Francisco police are looking for a 2-year-old girl whose mother was found slain, officials said late Saturday.
At a news conference just before 10 p.m. outside police headquarters, officials identified the homicide victim as Nicole Fitts. She was found dead Friday, said Officer Grace Gatpandan, after she was last seen April 1 and reported missing to city police on Tuesday.
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WASHINGTON The Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are coming to terms with the cold mathematical reality of chasing delegates ahead of their nominating conventions, with front-runners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump driving for challenge-proof majorities against rivals who wont go away.
For Trump, who remains well short of the 1,237 delegates he needs to clinch the GOP nod, that means his campaign focuses on developing a delegate-centered strategy akin to the one that rival Ted Cruz has pursued for months.
A more traditional approach is needed, and Donald Trump recognizes that, Paul Manafort, Trumps new delegate chief, said Sunday on NBCs Meet the Press.
For Clinton, who lost Wyoming on Saturday to Bernie Sanders, it means maintaining her commanding leads among delegates and popular votes no matter how many states Sanders wins or how much momentum he claims. Key to her drive is a win April 19 in New York, which she represented in the U.S. Senate.
Asked in a CNN interview that aired Sunday whether shes quietly preparing a strategy in the unlikely event of a contested Democratic convention, she replied, No, I intend to have the number of delegates that are required to be nominated.
Maryland, where Clinton is favored, holds its primary on April 26 along with Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Delaware and Connecticut.
Clintons campaign is pushing for big wins across the northeast, in an effort to gain what theyve termed an all but insurmountable lead in the delegate race.
I was honored to serve as your senator for eight years, Clinton told parishioners at Greater Allen Cathedral in Queens on Sunday. Im now running for president to continue the work weve done all those years.
But with neither front-runner strong enough to claim inevitability, their challengers stick to the hope that by winning more races and cozying up to delegates, they stand a chance of eventually grabbing their respective party nominations.
For Ohio Gov. John Kasich, its about winning enough delegates to keep all candidates from locking up the majority. And that means sowing doubts about the effect that a Trump or Cruz nomination would have on the party.
We would lose seats all the way from the statehouse to the courthouse meaning races all down the ballot, Kasich told CBSs Face the Nation.
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Police in San Francisco continued their hunt Sunday for a slain womans missing 2-year-old daughter, while friends and family anxiously waited for updates on the search and for details on what happened to the mother of two.
Arianna Fitts was last seen in February, weeks before her mother, 32-year-old Nicole Fitts, was found dead Friday, San Francisco police Officer Grace Gatpandan said late Saturday.
The little girl is considered at risk because she is so young and because her mother was a homicide victim, police said. Officials released photos of the girl over the weekend, asking anyone who sees her to call 911. Police have not said if any suspects were identified or arrested in the killing.
Friends and family, meanwhile, are waiting for news about the young girl. But hope of her safe return was shrouded with sorrow over the slaying of Nicole Fitts, whom her sister described as cheerful and pleasant.
Its rough, Nicole Fitts sister, Contessa Fitts, said Sunday morning. The thing that is keeping me going is that were going to find Arianna. I have to keep finding information.
Police officials have been reluctant to provide specifics on the investigation and have said only that Nicole was found deceased as a victim of a homicide. She was last seen on April 1, police said.
Authorities have not said how the woman was killed or where her body was found. Contessa Fitts, who lives in Santa Cruz, said she has not heard anything about possible suspects in the case.
The police havent told me much, she said. They arent saying anything now, but I know the cops are doing everything they can.
Nicole Fitts, who went by Nikki, most recently lived in San Francisco and worked at the Best Buy store on Harrison Street in the citys Mission District, her sister said. She grew up in Southern California before moving to the Bay Area and, 12 years ago, she had her first daughter, her family said. Ten years later, Arianna was born.
Michael Jacobo, 33, a close friend and co-worker at Best Buy, spoke emotionally about Fitts on Sunday. He said their birthdays are close together and they were recently planning a summer trip with her daughters to Disneyland.
None of this makes sense, Jacobo said. She was one of the kindest people you would ever meet. She always had a smile on her face. It always stuck with me how kind and shy she was.
Since Nicole Fitts death, Jacobo said, police have been interviewing the womans friends and family members.
The mother and daughter were known to frequent San Francisco, San Mateo, Oakland, Emeryville, Fresno, Santa Cruz and the Silicon Valley area, police said.
Contessa Fitts said she stayed in touch with her sister, talking on the phone every week. Despite living in different cities, the two would get together about once a month.
She was cheerful and pleasant to be around, always just giving to people, Contessa Fitts said. She always made sure whoever she was around was taken care of. She was bubbly and a really good person.
Nicole Fitts friends had been circulating a missing-person bulletin on social media for the past week, while others started the Facebook group Finding Nicole Nikki Fitts and Arianna Fitts. One friend suggested the woman may have been in Fresno.
But as friends and co-workers on Facebook hold out hope for the 2-year-old, many were anguished to learn of the mothers death.
I cant stop crying, one friend wrote. She doesnt deserve this.
San Francisco police said they are dedicating numerous resources around the clock to the investigation.
Until I hear shes not, I believe shes fine, Contessa Fitts said of her niece.
Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
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When the fog lifts and San Francisco's mild climate turns hot and balmy, I often take my 2-year-old to Ocean Beach.
We always spread our towels in the same spot that's just below the parking lot at Taraval because it's easy and close to our home. We know this stretch of beach, strewn with broken sand dollars and crab claws, well.
But on Tuesday, my daughter hesitated as she set her foot down on the sand.
"It's dirty, mommy," she said.
She was startled when she looked out at the swath of darkness sparkling and gleaming under the sunlight. The sand that's typically white was as black as coal and flecked with glittery pieces.
Many locals have the same reaction when large swirling patches of black sand cover Ocean Beach as the city often gets calls reporting an oil spill.
But in fact, the sand is anything but dirty and is made up of a really cool iron ore derivative called magnetite. If you hold a magnet over the sand, the tiny bits stick to it. The sand particles themselves become magnetic and they then attract more sand and you can conduct all sorts of fun science experiments.
The Ocean Beach black sand is unlike the variety found on Hawaiian beaches as volcanic sand is not metallic.
Ken Finn, the Exploratorium's science educator, explains that the Ocean Beach sand comes from the Sierra Nevada where igneous rocks are being worn down through erosion.
"Most of the sand at Ocean Beach is from this source," Finn says, "carried here by the tributaries of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers that meet in the delta and flow through San Francisco Bay and out the gate. The prevailing ocean current helps push this exiting sediment flow south and wave action pushes it onto Ocean Beach.
The black sand is always coming and going, depending on storms, currents, the waves, the tides, the movement of the ocean.
"The sand at Ocean Beach is always on the move," Finn explains. "The sand...follows a seasonal movement cycle. The heavy seas in the winter pull a lot of sand off the beach and drop it a little offshore."
He adds: "In the winter large bands of black sand are exposed, making the beach seem more black than the the last time you were out there, or the reverse is also true. Over the summer months more and more sand is deposited on the beach. Sand that was swept out during the winter months and new sand brought down by the spring snowmelt in the Sierras piles up on the beach in the spring and summer months."
Finn says the black sand is more likely to appear at Ocean Beach than at the cities other city beaches such as Crissy Field, Baker Beach and China Beach. "For some reason, most likely linked to the density of these black bits in the sand spectrum," he says, "the current deposits the bulk of our black sand between Rivera St. and Sloat Blvd."
I returned to Ocean Beach with my son yesterday as after I learned the sand responds to magnets I knew he'd want to play around with it.
We took an extra powerful magnet to the beach and he held it over the sand. The particles flew up to it.
The day was unseasonably hot and the beach was a zoo with surfers, dog owners, sand castle builders and sun bathers. And then there we were fiddling around with a magnet.
"Mom, this is so cool," my son said. "Do you think any of these other people know what this sand can do?"
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I'm not going to be politically correct with this post tonight. Instead I'm going to be very blunt.
Here goes.
I don't know what it's going to take for police officers in San Francisco to get Tasers. Yesterday another person holding a knife was shot and killed by police.
It all started after there were reports of a homeless man walking around with a 13 inch knife.
After arriving on the scene, the police told him to drop to the ground.
He didn't.
They told him to drop the knife.
He didn't.
They then shot him several times with high powered bean bags.
But they said he was still coming toward them.
And at that point they shot and killed him. It was all over in about 30 seconds.
I don't understand why San Francisco and Detroit are the only major cities that don't use Tasers.
I know that Tasers aren't perfect. But I'd still rather be shot with a Taser than a gun. It's just not even a question to me.
I also thought that some of the comments we got from people on the scene were interesting. Several told us that they thought the person who was killed didn't speak English. So maybe he didn't know what the officers were saying.
I have to be honest. I think that's ridiculous.
If someone is holding a 13 inch knife and police have their guns pointed at him and are yelling at him, I don't think you need to speak English to understand what they're saying. Just drop the knife.
We also had someone tell us that the victim was holding the knife but not in a "threatening" way.
I would beg to differ. I don't think there is any way to hold a 13 inch knife that is NOT threatening.
Just the idea that someone is walking down the street with a 13 inch knife is, in and of itself, "threatening."
And if you don't believe me just picture yourself on a Bart train standing next to someone holding a 13 inch knife.
Would you feel threatened?
Would you feel scared?
I sure would.
I hope the police commission will reconsider their decision and allow officers to have Tasers.
Someone's life could very well depend on it.
As always I'm totally open for discussion on this. I just ask that everyone keep their comments respectful.
Frank Somerville is the regular 5, 6 and 10 pm anchor on KTVU News. This post originally appeared on His Facebook Page, where you can leave a comment with your reaction.
What youll see: Years of planning and boots-on-the ground work were crowned last week with the opening of the Bay Areas newest trail, a link to Mindego Hill and its sweeping views across the coastal foothills and beyond to the ocean. There are also hooves on the ground. This is the first section of public-accessible trail on the Peninsula with cattle grazing.
Location: Mindego Hill is in Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve on the south Peninsula. A new parking area and trailhead is located off Alpine Road, near the west-facing flank of Skyline west of Palo Alto.
The preserve: Russian Ridge is a big preserve that is always gorgeous. On clear days, you get drop-dead beautiful views toward the coast. On foggy days, youll find that 2,143-foot Mindego Hill and 2,572-foot Borel Hill pop up above the layer of stratus like islands in a sea.
The new hike: From the new Mindego Gateway Parking Area (elevation 2,200 feet), take the Mindego Hill Trail (a gravel road at the start). The trail starts out very steep down (on the way back, a steep up). At 0.5 of a mile youll reach a junction. (mountain bikes are not allowed past this point on Mindego Hill Trail, an endangered species issue; bikes must turn right on Charquin Trail). Continue ahead 1.1 miles to a gate (and the start of area with grazing cattle) and another junction. Turn left (still Mindego Hill Trail) and climb 300 feet over 0.7 of a mile to a small loop that rings the summit of Mindego Hill (the slopes plunge around you, and little Mindego Lake, no access, is below to the north). 4.8-mile round trip.
Trail notes:Wildflower blooms feature lupine and California poppies; sightings of many raptors gliding and hunting are common; unlike the cows at parks in the East Bay hills, the cows here distance themselves from hikers.
Commemorative view site: From the new Mindego Gateway, take the Ancient Oaks Trail a short distance to a junction. Bear left to the lookout with tiered viewing platorms, wheelchair-accessible terrace. This is the Audrey C. Rust Commemorative Site, an honor for the former president of the Peninsula Open Space Trust, which helped protect more than 50,000 acres of land on the Peninsula.
Cost: Parking, access free.
Map/brochure: Available near trailhead at parking. PDF at website.
How to get there: Take Interstate 280 to the San Francisco Peninsula and continue to Woodside and the exit for Woodside Road/Highway 84 West. Take that exit, turn west onto Woodside Road and drive 6.5 miles (through Woodside, enter redwoods, becomes curvy as you climb) to Sky Londa and Skyline Boulevard/Highway 35. Turn left on Skyline and drive 7.3 miles to junction with Alpine Road on right (Page Mill Road on left). Turn right on Alpine Road and drive 1.3 miles (becomes curvy) to turnoff on right to new parking area.
Option from South Bay: From Palo Alto at I 280, take Page Mill Road west about 10 miles (becomes very narrow and curvy, watch out for bikes) to Skyline/Highway 35. Continue straight on Alpine Road for 1.3 miles to parking on right.
Distances to Mindego Gateway: 10 miles from Sky Londa, 12 miles from Palo Alto, 14 miles from Woodside, 26 miles from Half Moon Bay, 27 miles from San Jose, 35 miles from Hayward, 45 miles from downtown San Francisco, 52 miles from Sausalito, 52 miles from Dublin.
Contacts: Russian Ridge Open Space Preserves, Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, (650) 691-1200, www.openspace.org.
Tom Stienstra
What youll see: Years of planning and boots-on-the ground work were crowned last week with the opening of the Bay Areas newest trail, a link to Mindego Hill and its sweeping views across the coastal foothills and beyond to the ocean. There are also hooves on the ground. This is the first section of public-accessible trail on the Peninsula with cattle grazing.
Location: Mindego Hill is in Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve on the s outh Peninsula. A new parking area and trailhead is located off Alpine Road, near the west-facing flank of Skyline west of Palo Alto.
The preserve: Russian Ridge is a big preserve that is always gorgeous. On clear days, you get drop-dead beautiful views toward the coast. On foggy days, youll find that 2,143-foot Mindego Hill and 2,572-foot Borel Hill pop up above the layer of stratus like islands in a sea.
The new hike: From the new Mindego Gateway Parking Area (elevation 2,200 feet), take the Mindego Hill Trail (a gravel road at the start). The trail starts out very steep down (on the way back, a steep up). At 0.5 of a mile youll reach a junction. (Mountain bikes are not allowed past this point on Mindego Hill Trail, an endangered species issue; bikes must turn right on Charquin Trail.) Continue ahead 1.1 miles to a gate (and the start of area with grazing cattle) and another junction. Turn left (still Mindego Hill Trail) and climb 300 feet over 0.7 of a mile to a small loop that rings the summit of Mindego Hill (the slopes plunge around you, and little Mindego Lake, no access, is below to the north). 4.8-mile round trip.
Trail notes: Wildflower blooms feature lupine and California poppies; sightings of many raptors gliding and hunting are common; unlike the cows at parks in the East Bay hills, the cows here distance themselves from hikers.
Commemorative view site: From the new Mindego Gateway, take the Ancient Oaks Trail a short distance to a junction. Bear left to the lookout with tiered viewing platforms and a wheelchair-accessible terrace. This is the Audrey C. Rust Commemorative Site, an honor for the former president of the Peninsula Open Space Trust, which helped protect more than 50,000 acres of land on the P eninsula.
Cost: Parking, access free.
Map/brochure: Available near trailhead at parking. PDF at website.
How to get there: Take Interstate 280 to the San Francisco Peninsula and continue to Woodside and the exit for Woodside Road/Highway 84 West. Take that exit, turn west onto Woodside Road and drive 6.5 miles (through Woodside, enter redwoods, becomes curvy as you climb) to Sky Londa and Skyline Boulevard/Highway 35. Turn left on Skyline and drive 7.3 miles to junction with Alpine Road on right (Page Mill Road on left). Turn right on Alpine Road and drive 1.3 miles (becomes curvy) to turnoff on right to new parking area.
Option from South Bay: From Palo Alto at I-280, take Page Mill Road west about 10 miles (becomes very narrow and curvy, watch out for bikes) to Skyline/Highway 35. Continue straight on Alpine Road for 1.3 miles to parking on right.
Distances to Mindego Gateway: 10 miles from Sky Londa, 12 miles from Palo Alto, 14 miles from Woodside, 26 miles from Half Moon Bay, 27 miles from San Jose, 35 miles from Hayward, 45 miles from downtown San Francisco, 52 miles from Sausalito, 52 miles from Dublin.
Contacts: Russian Ridge Open Space Preserves, Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, (650) 691-1200, www.openspace.org.
Tom Stienstra
Now is the time when, with one box, you can rock your world.
Your age, background or experience in nature makes no difference. Do this one time and it will not only change the world, it will change how you feel for life. All in the next 40 days.
To start, you need to find a creek, pond or lake. That qualifies every person in Northern California. What you do is strap the box on a tree within walking distance of the water.
The first time you do this, what follows can seem like a miracle.
Wood ducks (the prettiest of all ducks), which nest above ground, will seek out the box to nest. A little more than a month later, about a dozen little fuzzballs will hatch.
The mother will kick them out of the box and they will walk to the water. If you track the progress, youll spot the parents in the water, followed by a line of little ducklings.
If you live near water and can position the box adjacent to a wildlife cam, or actually see the procession of fuzzballs take their first steps, it will rock your world.
Wood ducks are starting to nest and lay their eggs now, according to several nest box surveys last week in the Bay Area and Sacramento Valley. On Saturday night, the California Wood Duck Program held its 25th anniversary banquet in Fairfield to celebrate and raise money. In those 25 years, the program has produced 740,609 ducklings and is expected to top 750,000 this spring.
Anybody can make it work. All you need is the right box and a tree near water.
In the Bay Area, for instance, some of the best successes have been in Walnut Creek. Local conservationists, including longtime Chronicle field scouts Brian Murphy and Rich Fletcher, as well as the California Waterfowl Association, Audubon Society, Boy Scouts and other service groups, have put up dozens of wood duck nesting boxes near small local creeks and ponds. At Heather Farms, a community park with a pond, wood ducks are now nesting in several boxes and are expected to hatch this years crop by mid-May.
As at most sites, before the boxes went up, there were no wood ducks at the park. Now there are.
When you put up a box and then see a new family of ducks puttering around in a pond, to know you are responsible will make you glow as if you have been touched by pure magic.
Paul Bonderson Jr., president of Ducks Unlimited, told me last week that he was affected so deeply by the success of wood duck nesting boxes that he put up 400 on his ranch near Colusa. At another world-class ranch for waterfowl, Rancho Esquon near Durham (Butte County), where I surveyed 1,000 acres last week that have been converted from farmland to wetlands, nest boxes positioned near a pond had their first eggs.
The nesting boxes that work best are 25 inches tall, 11 inches square, have a 3-by-4-inch oval hole for the hen to get in and out and a cap-like top that allows people to monitor the nest without scaring the ducks inside.
Many organizations provide blueprints so you can build them. That includes California Waterfowl, Ducks Unlimited, National Wildlife, Delta Waterfowl, the Wood Duck Society and others. You can also buy the boxes complete for about $60 to $70 from many outlets.
One trick, Murphy said, is to put pepper in the box. That keeps out predators that could eat the eggs.
The duckling hatch is so cute, to see those little guys coming out of their shells, Murphy said. Its like popcorn popping when they come out of the box. Within 24 hours of hatching, they all leave the box to join mom in the creek. Thats how you get hooked on wood ducking.
Turkey attacks
Luther, cont.: A recent column told the story of how a wild turkey attacked me, and here is the continuing saga. My wife gave me a military-style attack squirt gun, and when I tried to light the barbecue on the back porch before a Giants game, the turkey jumped on the porch and went after me. So I let him have it, right in the head, the wings, direct hit. Instead of the stream of water repelling the turkey, he instead rose up and attacked full-on. Weve named him Luther and now have the video camera ready, as well as a hose, for the next assault.
Train him: If you were a real man, you would capture that turkey, domesticate him, have him fetching your morning paper. Scott Ostler
Sky Oaks gobbler: Near Bon Tempe Lake in Marin, Fred Liebes said, a big male turkey came at him at the Sky Oaks Ranger Station. He dragged his wings along on the pavement, sounding like a cardboard box scraping along. Fortunately he backed down.
Many yarns: Ken Lerch of El Cerrito walked out to his driveway to go to work and, he said, a wild turkey blocked him, so he snapped a few close-up photos. ... Raymond Zanni reports he, too, was attacked by a big gobbler, the turkey actually chasing him down, just like the one thats been after me. ... Vic Ryerson spotted a raft of turkeys, and then asked: Why hasn't someone figured out the equation: Excess wild turkeys plus hungry homeless equals well-fed homeless (and end of turkey problems)?
Tales of the wild
San Luis showdown: After the recent Sunday Drive feature about the elk herd below the dam at San Luis Reservoir, Cheryl Major said she saw coyotes sneaking up on newborn elk calves. Two mamas chased the coyotes away.
S.F. coyote charge: Jeff Rafnson asked that this encounter be publicized to warn residents of San Francisco near Bernal Hill: While he was walking his dog, a coyote charged and attacked twice within 10 feet. My dog is a 130-pound mastiff so this would not have been easy pickings for the coyote, Rafnson wrote. The coyote was incredibly bold and aggressive.
S.F. encounter: Jodell Scott was walking Teagan, a 55-pound golden retriever, in Glen Canyon when they had a 15-foot encounter with a coyote. I have a new consciousness of how this could have been a really bad day, and Teagan will be on leash in those high hills, Scott said.
Backyard lion: You may have seen this story on TV, but this is the first opportunity to report it here: A juvenile mountain lion was darted and moved from the backyard of a home in Santa Cruz, the Department of Fish and Wildlife reported, and in the aftermath, one report said 40 pets have been reported missing in the area.
Urban deer: A study at Ball State University found that deer survival is higher in urban areas than in the wild as twice as many fawns survive because of less predation than occurs in rural areas.
Tom Stienstra is The Chronicles outdoor writer. E-mail: tstienstra@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @StienstraTom
BEIRUT The Islamic State group has released most of the 300 cement workers it abducted near Damascus after questioning them to find out who were Muslims and killing four who were members of the minority Druze sect, a Syrian opposition monitoring group and a news agency linked to the extremists reported Saturday.
The reports came two days after the militants abducted the cement workers and contractors from al-Badia Cement Company in Dumeir, just northeast of the capital, after a surprise attack on government forces.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said all those abducted have been released except for 30 people who were guards at the cement factory. It said the fate of the 30 is unknown.
The Islamic State-affiliated Aamaq news agency said most of the 300 were released after questioning to determine their religion and whether they support the government. It said four workers who belonged to the minority Druze sect were killed and 20 pro-government gunmen are still being held.
The Druze, a 10th century offshoot of Shiite Islam, made up about 5 percent of Syrias pre-war population of 23 million people. Lebanon and Israel also have large Druze communities. The Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim group, considers all Shiites to be heretics deserving death.
Government forces and insurgents, meanwhile, clashed near Handarat, just north of the northern city of Aleppo, Syrias largest, activists said. In the western part of Aleppo province, troops backed by Lebanons Hezbollah fighters battled militants in Khan Touman and al-Ais, where insurgents last week killed more than two dozen Lebanese militants and government forces, according to activists and state media.
Elsewhere in northern Syria, a mine left behind by Islamic State fighters near the Kurdish town of Kobani killed at least four children and wounded several others late Friday. The Observatory said four children were killed and six wounded when the mine exploded in the village of Darb Hassan. State news agency SANA said six children were killed.
Kobani-based Kurdish official Idriss Naasan said the children were shepherds who took their sheep and goats to graze in Darb Hassan on Friday. When they opened the door to a house, the mine exploded, killing four children and wounding the rest.
1 Philippines fighting: At least 18 soldiers were killed in fierce fighting with Abu Sayyaf extremists in the southern Philippines on Saturday in the largest single-day government combat loss this year, officials said. At least 52 other soldiers were wounded in the clashes in the hinterlands bordering Tipo Tipo and Al-Barka towns on Basilan island, three military officials told the Associated Press. Four militants were killed, they said. Troops were deployed to kill or capture Abu Sayyaf commander Isnilon Hapilon, who has publicly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and has been hunted for years for his alleged involvement in several terrorist attacks, the officials said.
2 Fugitive captured: A woman who was on the FBIs 10 Most Wanted fugitives list for the killing of her ex-boyfriends new girlfriend in Texas has been detained in Mexico. Brenda Delgado, 33, was taken into custody in the city of Torreon, in northern Coahuila state, the Attorney Generals Office said Friday. She will be held pending extradition proceedings. She faces charges of capital murder and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution in connection with the September death of Kendra Hatcher, a dentist. Dallas County District Attorney Susan Hawk said an extradition agreement between Mexico and the U.S. requires that the death penalty not be allowed. Hawk said Delgado faces life in prison if convicted. Hatcher, 35, was gunned down in the parking garage of her Dallas apartment. Prosecutors allege Delgado hired two accomplices one of them the gunman to carry out the hit. Both accomplices are in custody. It was only Wednesday when the FBI announced Delgado had been added to the most-wanted list. A reward of $100,000 was offered for her capture, but it wasnt clear Saturday whether it will be paid based on a tip.
Prime Minister John Key is signalling a change of heart on the government's insistence last week that New Zealand's foreign trust rules are sound, telling RNZ's Morning Report programme the Cabinet will consider a proposal for an inquiry by an independent expert.
Under pressure from revelations in the global leak of tax dodging practices known as the Panama Papers, Key said it was "highly likely that the government will ask an expert in this area to undertake an independent review."
It might also turn out there "may be other learnings" outside such a review "in terms of disclosure," Key said.
In the same interview, he insisted he had not used foreign tax-sheltering vehicles, although he had "no intention" of releasing his personal tax returns, as British Prime Minister David Cameron was forced to do last week following disclosures relating to his late father's use of foreign trusts, contained in the Panama Papers.
"I don't use tax-sheltering vehicles. I have never used those and I don't use those," said Key. He had a superannuation fund domiciled in Singapore, dating back to the time when he worked there. He had two domestic trusts through which he managed his personal affairs. Parliament's rules on disclosures of pecuniary interest were robust and he used "the best people" for his personal tax returns.
However, Labour Party leader Andrew Little said a single expert's review was not enough and, like New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, called for an independent commission of inquiry.
"He must instead launch a full independent inquiry into the details coming out of the Panama Papers," Little said. New Zealands reputation is being sullied around the world. One tax expert isnt going to solve this, especially one appointed by a Prime Minister who doesnt think hiding their finances behind tax-free funds is morally wrong."
New Zealand First's Peters has called for a commission of inquiry, while the Green Party says it would require foreign trusts in New Zealand to register and disclose more complete information on the identity of the settlors, their country of residence, related parties, and require annual financial reporting.
BusinessDesk.co.nz
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Nuplex Industries' independent directors are unanimously backing Allnex Belguim SA's $1.05 billion bid for the resins maker after the US-based firm completed its due diligence.
The companies have signed a scheme implementation agreement, which values Nuplex at $5.55 a share, including the 12 cents per share dividend payment in February. That's a 44 percent premium to where the shares were trading before the Feb. 15 announcement and higher than the current price of $5.26, which gained 3.5 percent at today's open. Nuplex's directors all support the bid, which requires 75 percent approval in a special meeting likely to be held in August.
The recommendation is contingent on the $5.43 offer price, which excludes the dividend, falling within or above the independent adviser's valuation range, and that a better offer doesn't emerge. Managing director Emery Severin abstained from making a recommendation because of his executive role.
"The board believes Nuplex is well positioned to deliver growth in earnings, particularly from the platform now established in Asia and our new breakthrough technology, Acure," chairman Peter Springford said in a statement. "However, delivering this growth will take some time and therefore shareholders may find attractive the opportunity to realise some of the future value of their Nuplex shares in cash now."
Allnex is controlled by Boston private equity firm Advent International, whose early advances to buy Nuplex were rejected. Those talks continued and Nuplex relented when the price became attractive, agreeing to a merger which will create one of the worlds largest makers of coating resins.
Nuplex started in Auckland in 1952 as a flooring distributor before branching out into resins and polymers over the next 20 years. As the firm's focus became increasingly international, it shifted its headquarters to Sydney, while maintaining its New Zealand domicile and main listing on the NZX, which it joined in 1967.
The deal, which will remove the high-tech manufacturing firm from the NZX's list of top 50 stocks, has to be completed by Nov. 9 and requires regulatory approvals in New Zealand, Australia and China. Those are expected by the end of July. Once that's completed, the transaction will need High Court sign-off.
Both parties face a break fee of $10.47 million if the deal is terminated outside agreed terms.
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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- To connect the dots, first you have to collect the dots, so the saying goes.
For Varun Adibhatla those dots are potholes -- not just potholes, any street defect - cave-ins, utility cuts, manhole irregularities, general bumpiness.
He and fellow NYU grad Graham Henke, have devised a way to collect the dots with a gizmo they call SQUID (Street Quality Identification Device) that gathers both data on the condition of roads and photos of its surface.
"In the 21st century, we are going to be using driverless cars, but we are still grappling with the 100-year-old problem of road conditions with 20th century solutions," says Adibhatla, for whom bumps and craters have become "great data points."
SQUID is the first project of ARGO (Advanced Research in Government Operations), the company that Adibhatla and Henke formed. They dubbed it "Toward a Vision Zero for NYC Potholes."
SQUID, a simple and inexpensive system, gets mounted in and on the trunk of a vehicle. Then as the car is driven, SQUID continuously collects information employing a Raspberry Pi, which is a small computer; an accelerometer, a device that measures vibration; GPS, for location, and a camera for photos of road surface.
Next a map is generated, connecting the "dots" of information and providing a picture with color-coded points of the range from smooth to poor ride quality. Click on a dot, and an info box (including a rating of that spot) and a photo break out.
The present system for collecting potholes and other street defects information is through observation -- by residents, City Council members, DOT officials all fed into 311. The response time on potholes is very good within one-and-a-half days, according to the Department of Transportation. However, said Adibhatla, SQUID would enable city managers to make more efficient and objective decisions on all street conditions.
"311 is only as good as the number of people who actually report street defects. It can be very unreliable," Adibhatla said. "So our approach is to collect a complete data set at first and then start processing and measuring so you can capture in a more equitable way. So basically every area is equal."
Each SQUID unit takes about $350 to produce and $500 to implement with the cost of hotspots and data collection. Fifteen devices (on 15 vehicles driving distinct routes) could cover all 6,000 miles of NYC streets in about two to three weeks, says Adibhatla.
He had agreed to meet me and give SQUID a test drive on Staten Island roads. I chose a loop on the North Shore near the ferry and on the South Shore near the Outerbridge Crossing.
We covered 22 miles in about an hour and 15 minutes. SQUID gathered 5,585 images.
Adibhatla used the results to generate two maps. One is a static map of both North and South shore routes color-coded to show bumpiness. Green is smoothest; red is moonscape.
The second is an interactive map of segments of the routes, a sample of what SQUID ultimately provides. You can click on a location to see both the rating for the road surface and a photo that shows defects. (Adibhatla said you may have to click on spots a little before or after a hotspot to see the photo that corresponds to the defect.)
Here is the interactive map.
SQUID AND SCOUT
Who is going to drive all over the city with these devices you might ask?
The city already does that. The Street Conditions Observation Unit (S.C.O.U.T.) is a team of city agency inspectors that drive every city street once per month and report quality of life conditions to 311.
Street defects are reported to 311 and an inspector is sent out. However, if the unit returned with all the data from SQUID, argues Adibhatla, a virtual inspection could be made in much less time.
And the city has already taken notice of SQUID, said Adibhatla, testing it out on a number of cars. On Staten Island, it was driven up Hillside Avenue on Grymes Hill.
The city of Syracuse has contracted with ARGO to employ SQUID there. The project also got a boost from the Knight Foundation with a $35,000 grant to help the project "take root."
VOLUNTEERS WELCOME
A resident of Manhattan, Adibhatla does not own a car, but he is keen to build up data from monitoring a stretch of road over time. He is looking for a driver who can commit to driving the same few miles every few weeks with SQUID. For more information, community board members, City Council members, any borough resident are encouraged to contact him at varun@argolabs.org.
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
A native of India, Adibhatla has studied and worked in the field of implementing technology in practical ways for over 10 years. After a stint in supporting high-frequency and algorithmic trading at large banks, he returned to school to pursue his main focus -- applications for local governments to better deliver basic services.
SQUID grew out of a project he undertook during his first week of class at New York University's Center for Urban Science and Progress. During a ride on the New York Century Bike Tour, he measured the course bumpiness and generated a map with ratings from Smooth to Ugh, Woa and Nuts! (as in this could seriously damage your reproductive system).
SQUID is the first project of ARGO (Advanced Research in Government Operations), the company that Adibhatla and Henke formed.
He notes that more efficiently monitoring road hazards has been a goal of municipal government for decades. Explaining an early project in 1998, The Fund for the City of New York says the motivation for developing a reliable system is that "one way people rate the performance of their city government in general is by how well the city's streets are maintained."
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A second man has been arrested after he and a group of others allegedly attacked a Meiers Corners woman outside her home Wednesday night, stabbing her and beating her with a pipe, an NYPD spokesman said.
Anthony Johnson, 29, of Ann Street, Port Richmond, was accused of assaulting the 41-year-old woman at about 7:50 p.m. in front of her Bradley Avenue home, the spokesman said.
Johnson was arrested Friday and charged with gang assault and third- and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon, he said.
The victim, who had been sitting inside her home prior to the attack, went outside to confront the group of men when she was jumped, a police source said.
The attack left the woman with lacerations to her stomach, hand and leg, the NYPD spokesman said. The victim was taken to an area hospital in stable condition, he said.
Shortly after the attack, police apprehended Tystfyr Butler, 25, of Van Pelt Avenue, Mariners Harbor, charging him with gang assault, third- and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a controlled substance, according to police.
Officers allegedly found heroin, marijuana and tobacco coated with Phencyclidine (PCP) on Butler.
Butler and Johnson both have lengthy criminal histories, according to police.
Johnson has racked up 24 arrests, and Butler has a history of numerous drug-related arrests, the police department spokesman said.
The details of their arrests were not made available.
Johnson and Butler were both arraigned Saturday in Criminal Court in St. George, court records show.
Butler was ordered held on $7,500 bail and Johnson was was ordered held on $1,500 bail, according to public records.
An NYPD spokesman could not say if any other suspects are currently being sought in connection with the assault.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A local substance abuse support group Sunday offered store managers tips to avoid selling alcohol to underage youth or intoxicated patrons.
Only two people attended the responsible beverage server training event at the National Action Network in Stapleton, but organizers say they plan on implementing a new strategy to reach more businesses.
Organizers blamed Sunday's low turnout on the fact that several stores have lost their liquor licenses.
"A lot of stores lost their license or there are a lot of mom and pop shops so they couldn't really leave their businesses, said Naflan Doole, an organizer with Drug Free Community Grant Coordinator at Tackling Youth Substance Abuse (TYSA).
"So our new strategy is to go into the businesses and do the training on the spot with them during a time that they're free."
In January, the State Liquor Authority charged 10 stores on Staten Island with selling alcohol to minors during a series of citywide undercover sting operations.
Sunday's training session, part of the organization's United We Stand campaign, offered examples of good business practices for store owners to follow in order to safely serve alcohol.
Some tips include checking for IDs and looking for behavioral cues, Doole said.
The United We Stand campaign, established by TYSA in 2014, helps local shop owners ensure that their businesses meet NYPD and New York state Liquor Authority compliance checks. One of the goals is to reduce alcohol-related issues on Staten Island.
"Staten Island leads in all five categories compared to New York State, drinking and binge-drinking are two of them," Doole said.
"Doing these programs with our other programs will hopefully reduce the alcohol consumption rate on Staten Island."
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As part of Minister Lees self-financed visit to Coomeva and medical facilities in Colombia, Minister Lee made a point of visiting as many patients as possible from St Maarten that were in the cities of Cali, Bogota and Medellin at the time. As part of the Ministers hands on approach, the Minister felt that it was important to get direct feedback from patients as to the quality of service and quality of medical treatment being received by our patients. The informal interviews with patients included discussions about the ability of patients to communicate with hospital staff, comfort level, experiences with logistics, quality of the medical services, experience with SZV and the entire referral process. These informal interviews were conducted in private and without the presence of hospital or Coomeva staff present which allowed patients to speak freely about their experiences.
According to Minister Lee, The feedback on the quality of care and level of professionalism from the medical facilities has all been very positive. Most expressed satisfaction with the entire referral process. Other patients expressed some frustration with the referral process much of which seems to be on either a breakdown in chain of communications or issues that originate prior to arrival in Colombia. Based on first impressions and feedback from patients in Colombia, I am comfortable that our patients from St Maarten are being well treated. Naturally, there is always room for improvement and discussions will continue on how to streamline and improve communication and level of service for our residents.
As discussions continue with regards to the development of a new hospital for St Maarten, there will always be a need to refer patients abroad. As the range and quality of services offered locally improve, hopefully we will be able to keep patients close to home and reduce the number of referral. However, it is anticipated that there will always be a need for some level of referral for more complicated cases and therefore, it is important to have a reliable and high quality referral program in place, said Minister Lee.
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What could possibly go wrong in Craik?
The 6,000 square foot building featured straw bale insulation, wood from local elevators, solar power, recycled water and waste composting. When it opened in 2004 just across the highway from the Craik townsite, it was promoted as a sustainable way to revitalize rural Saskatchewan. Scores of tourists, researchers and permanent residents were expected to flock to the region.
By most measures, that hasn't happened.
[...]
The Eco-Centre opened with great fanfare in July 2004. It was the brainchild of several members of Saskatchewan's environmental community.
Following a series of meetings, the town agreed to finance and operate the $600,000 facility. Locals and newcomers together supplied thousands of hours of free labour. The rural municipality donated the land, complete with a stunning view of the Arm River valley. Cheap lots were pledged for the expected wave of new residents moving into the adjacent Eco-Village. Officials said a Vancouver company would soon build a $5-million hemp processing plant there.
The accused murderer of Iranian asylum-seeker Reza Barati on Manus Island has been recaptured after nearly a fortnight on the run following his escape from jail, Papua New Guinean police say.
Police issued a brief statement on Sunday morning saying that the former Salvation Army worker Joshua Kaluvia was back in custody.
The memorial service for murdered asylum-seeker Reza Barati at the Al-Mahdi mosque in Tehran in 2014. Credit:Kate Geraghty
Mr Kaluvia is one of two men accused of the slaying of 23-year-old Mr Barati in early 2014 during a riot at the Manus Island detention centre.
In a major embarrassment for PNG authorities, Mr Kaluvia escaped on March 28 from East Lorengau jail on Manus Island. Adding to concerns, the Manus Island police commander has since expressed anger and frustration that he was not told of the escape for more than a week.
Two men charged with concealing a serious offence after a fatal Sydney shooting at an industrial estate in Sydney's south-west have been given bail.
Mohamad Abul Hamid Elmir and Adam Sam Abboud, both 22, faced Parramatta Local Court a day after the gunfight in Condell Park, which left one man dead and another seriously wounded.
Police say the pair gave vague and "totally contrary" statements after Mr Elmir's brother-in-law, Safwan Charbaji, was fatally wounded on Saturday afternoon.
Outside court, defence lawyer Ben Archbold said his clients were both traumatised by the shooting.
Extra buses to Sydney Airport for people wanting an alternative to the city's most expensive train trip remain a pipe dream, more than two years after the state government unveiled long-term plans to "improve bus access".
The lack of any new buses comes as road traffic in and around Australia's busiest airport continues to worsen.
The gridlock prompted the Baird government to recently introduce immediate new traffic measures and urge people to travel to Kingsford Smith by train instead of car.
Roads Minister Duncan Gay put it bluntly last month when he said the situation on the roads near the airport "could only be described in technical terms as a bloody mess".
"We are very much looking forward to extending what is a great partnership down here in Hobart," Brayshaw said.
The Roos' current deal to play at Blundstone Arena expires at the end of the year, but speaking at the chairman's function prior to Sunday's game against Melbourne at the venue, Brayshaw said the club was close to agreeing to terms with the Tasmanian government.
North Melbourne chairman James Brayshaw says the Kangaroos are in the process of "massaging" an imminent five-year extension of their deal to play games in Hobart.
"We think it's going to be by five years, we think it's going to be about three games. We're just massaging a little bit."
North currently play three games a year in Hobart. They are also due to face Richmond in round 11 and Sydney in round 22 at Blundstone. The match against the Tigers will be the first game at the ground to be played on a Friday night, and is set to be a sellout.
A recent report commissioned by the AFL favoured a one-team model in the Apple Isle, in which one club would play up to eight games in the state. However with Hawthorn having last year extended their deal to play in Launceston until the end of 2021, the one-team idea will need to be shelved - at least in the short-term.
Brayshaw described North's deal with Tasmania as "an unbelievable partnership for our footy club".
"It is liquid gold to our club.
Singapore Airlines has the financial firepower to make a bid for the remainder of Virgin Australia, but it may not do so unless a Chinese rival makes an offer for Air New Zealand's 25.9 per cent stake, according to aviation experts.
Maybank Investment Bank analyst Moshin Aziz said based on his estimates, Singapore Airlines had a net cash balance of $S3 billion ($2.95 billion) at the end of March, giving it one of the strongest airline balance sheets globally.
An acquisition of the remainder of Virgin would cost around $1.5 billion, including an expected recapitalisation of the carrier.
"[Singapore Airlines] clearly have the financial muscle, the money required to buy this airline," said Mr Aziz, who is based in Kuala Lumpur. "But to put so much money in, you want clarity of the management of the airline and the [Australian] government would need to give its blessing."
Judgement day may arrive as early as this week for Peabody, as the US coal giant teeters at the precipice of corporate oblivion, and a month's grace period for a loan repayment falls due.
Peabody is destined to become a test case for who gets left high-and-dry in the aftermath of a foreign-controlled corporate collapse. Should it succumb to Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US, the ramifications here for the coal sector; for workers, creditors, local communities and mine rehabilitation are immense, yet impossible to determine with any precision.
The beginning of a 10 hour shift at Metropolitan Colliery Helensburgh, a subsidiary of Peabody. Credit:Michele Mossop
Many others such as rival, Swiss-controlled Glencore, are also sweating it out. Glencore Operations Australia revealed $US21 billion ($27.8 billion) in debt at last balance date although the net position for the labyrinthine group is hard to work out as it doesn't consolidate its accounts at the top of the corporate tree in Australia and the coal price has been ravaged since.
Peabody though is in a far more imminent peril. It struck a credit deal last year where it pledged "65 per cent of first tier foreign subs, including Australia, in Peabody Investments (Gibraltar) Ltd to lenders as collateral for a $US1.2 billion credit facility".
Free TV Australia has written to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull requesting an urgent meeting with the lobby group and metropolitan television network bosses amid fears the government is about to ignore their calls for a cut to their $173 million-a-year licence fees.
Fairfax Media understands the letter, sent late last week after a Thursday telephone conference arranged by Free TV Australia, asks the Prime Minister to meet Seven West Media's Tim Worner, Nine Entertainment's Hugh Marks, Ten Network Holdings' Paul Anderson and Free TV chairman Harold Mitchell.
The free-to-air networks have called on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to cut their licence fees. Credit:Getty Images
Networks bosses were alarmed last Monday by a Fairfax Media report that the chances of a dramatic cut in licence fees, from 4.5 per cent to 1 per cent of broadcasters' revenues, have weakened as the Turnbull government prepares to hand down its pre-election budget next month.
There was intensive lobbying last week as a profit warning by Nine sent sector share prices plunging, underlining investors' fears about the structural threats facing free-to-air television from unregulated foreign services such as Netflix, which do not pay licence fees or have content obligations.
Given the amount of money the ACT government pockets from its monopoly on the sale of building blocks and home construction fees and charges, it would make sense to ensure the golden geese don't get plucked bare by others.
The sad fact commissioning a new home within the ACT is, in many ways, a lottery suggests the ACT government is yet to embrace this concept.
Credit:
Over the past half decade scores of unfortunate individuals and families have been financially wounded by the insolvency of their building contractors, the incompetence or dishonesty of their certifiers or the tight-fistedness of an insurance company.
They have then often learnt the hard way that while the ACT government is happy to profit from the multimillion dollar domestic property and construction sector, assistance to affected buyers is not always as effective as it could be when things go wrong.
About the year 2000, Ms Tullgen was prescribed the anti-psychotic medication Zyprexa, which is known to cause abnormally high blood-sugar levels and weight gain, among other side effects. Within six months she was diagnosed with diabetes. With asthma too, she needs to take about eight medications daily.
She says there is a lack of communication and co-ordination between health professionals caring for people with mental illness. Her psychiatrist is "a lovely guy, but I don't think he has written to my GP or my GP to him for many many years".
With professional experience in the health system, she is well able to relay information between them, but that is not possible for many people with serious mental illness. "Part of the thing about having serious mental illness is you get quite disorganised, even about taking your medication."
Professor Hopwood says it is important for doctors to "listen very carefully" to patients with major mental problems, "knowing they are more likely than most to have a major physical health problem as well". There should be consideration of specific Medicare items allowing longer consultations for full health assessments of people with major mental illness, he says.
The report says best practice in healthcare could reduce the impact of serious mental illness and concurrent physical illness by a third.
The "teleworking agreement" has a clause forcing workers to pay all the costs of their arrangement including power, phone, internet, water and gas.
The ABS is keen to use the work-from-home arrangements to reduce the amount of costly office space it occupies around Australia, Credit:iStock
Hundreds of Bureau of Statistics public servants are to be sent home with a laptop as the bureau pursues a plan to provide desks for only 80 per cent of its workforce.
The ABS, which is keen to use the work-from-home arrangements to reduce the amount of costly office space it occupies around Australia, says its public servants can simply claim those costs back at tax time.
The bureau also says that no-one will be forced to go home to work and that workers can choose the arrangement that suits them best.
But insiders are unhappy, grumbling that the bureau is outsourcing its costs to its own workers.
The bureau says it is moving to an "activity based working setup" which, it says, will relieve it of the burden of paying for desks sitting empty while workers are away from the office.
Unused office space is a problem across the federal government with taxpayers paying for about 34,000 work stations which are sitting idle in about 500 buildings around Australia.
Two men have been charged after a shooting in Sydney's south-west on Saturday killed one man and left another in a serious condition in hospital.
The men who were charged are both aged 22 and were arrested outside Bankstown Hospital on Saturday. They have been charged with concealing a serious indictable offence.
A crime scene has been established in Ilma Street, Condell Park after two men were shot shortly after 1pm on Saturday. Credit:Google Maps
The shooting happened at an industrial area about 1.10pm on Saturday in Condell Park in Bankstown. One man, aged 32, died in hospital and the other, aged 35, remains in a serious condition at Liverpool Hospital.
Officers said the men who were shot are known to police.
Traumatised, injured and confused, she was moved to Australia's first safe house for victims of trafficking, slavery and slavery-like practices, run by The Salvation Army. "I don't deserve this, I didn't ask for this. I can't believe somebody who knows me, somebody I can rely on, somebody I was looking up to can turn to take advantage of me and make me vulnerable in a way that I wasn't expecting. "I was in denial. No, it can't be happening to me. I'm in a new country, so what will happen? The person who brought me here is no more on my side. I'm in the hands of total strangers. I need to get out of this dream," she says. Since opening in 2008, the community-owned 10-bed shelter has supported 400 people. Fewer than 20 per cent of those report to the police, said Laura Vidal, a caseworker for the Salvation Army. Because of threats to her family and the very limited criminal justice avenues open to her at the time, Susan did not pursue justice through the police. Forced labour was criminalised in 2013 but the offence is yet to be tested in the courts.
Susan's case went to the Refugee Review Tribunal, in which she claimed she was a victim of human trafficking. She was granted a Refugee Protection Visa, and began the long process of bringing her children to Australia. "Susan doesn't necessarily count in statistics as a victim of human trafficking," said Ms Vidal. "People need to be recognised and supported as victims of crime irrespective of their participation with the criminal justice system." A spokesperson for the Australian Federal Police said that fear "can be an issue" in preventing victims from obtaining help. "Human trafficking and slavery prosecutions often rely heavily on the evidence of victims. This reliance can prove an impediment as human trafficking and slavery victims can be reluctant to give evidence, particularly if they (or their families) have been the subject of violence or threats of violence." Between 2004 and 31 December 2015, the AFP took 619 referrals for human trafficking, slavery and slavery like practices, such as forced labour and forced marriage, according to a submission by the Attorney-General's Department to the current parliamentary inquiry into human trafficking.
Since 2004, there have been 17 criminal trials resulting in convictions for human trafficking and slavery offences. Sixteen of those convictions related to sexual exploitation and one related to labour exploitation in a commercial kitchen. There has been an increase in labour trafficking and forced marriage cases over the past year. Now an advocate for the Freedom Partnership, Susan shares her story with others with the hope that victims may come forward. On Wednesday, she shared her story alongside Lucy Turnbull at the launch of the Salvos' annual Red Shield Appeal. "This is happening in Australia, it is happening behind each and everyone's backyard," she says. She claims to have met victims of slavery in her community who will not speak out about their situation. "It's like a stigma. Especially from my background in Africa, it's a label and it's going to be a permanent one."
Jennifer Burn of Anti-Slavery Australia said that attempts to avoid the stigma of slavery are not unusual and form another hindrance to investigating cases of forced labour. "Often people don't want to have the stigma of exploitation attached to them, people don't want to carry around a label, to be known forever as a slave." There is little community awareness within the Australian community, including state and territory government agencies, community service organisations and frontline professionals about forced labour, said Professor Burn. "In the community, there has been growing awareness around forced marriage, but here has not been a growing awareness of labour trafficking and slavery linked to labour." This week, Susan very publicly faced her fraught start in Sydney.
Development plans for the state's heritage listed properties will now be scrutinised over whether there are any "prudent and feasible alternatives" to the proposal before they are approved under changes which will give more teeth to Queensland's Heritage Council.
Acting Premier Jackie Trad said an amendment to the State Development Assessment Provisions would be made to give the heritage council stronger powers in assessing "destructive" development applications.
Entrance to the Cloudland ballroom, Bowen Hills, in 1946. Credit:State Library Queensland
With more developers looking to Brisbane as the Sydney and Melbourne property market becomes overcrowded, Ms Trad said it was time additional checks were put in place.
"During last year's consultation on our new planning legislation, the QHC raised concerns that destructive DAs could be approved without it having any say as to whether there was 'a prudent and feasible alternative' to the development," she said in a statement.
It's designed to enshrine rights many Queenslanders take for granted in law, but the proposal for a Human Rights Act has met with a mixed response.
The parliamentary committee charged with examining a bill of rights for Queensland whether there is a need for one, and if so, what it would look like and how it would work is meeting the Palaszczuk Government's commitment to independent MP Peter Wellington's request to investigate the issue.
Investigation of a Bill of Rights for Queensland was part of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk's agreement with Speaker Peter Wellington. Credit:Glenn Hunt
While it has unsurprisingly won support from human rights advocacy groups and sectors of the legal community, not all Queenslanders are convinced it is necessary.
"What in God's name does Australia have that's so bad to need a human rights act Bikies gone!!," Sunshine Coast resident Laura Ferguson submitted to the committee.
Hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent by Victoria over the next four years to boost the annual number of elective surgeries to nearly 200,000.
Health Minister Jill Hennessy on Sunday announced the April 27 state budget would outline "the largest ever one-off investment" to tackle growing elective surgery wait lists.
The Victorian government will spend $335 million to boost the number of elective surgeries to 200,000 every year.
As of December last year there were 43,588 Victorians on the elective surgery wait list, up from 40,869 people 12 months earlier.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has defended doling out almost half a billion dollars to Western Australia, saying the state gets a "raw deal" out of the GST allocation.
The federal government is providing $490 million for Western Australian infrastructure in 2016/17, to ensure the state's share of GST is effectively maintained.
Malcolm Turnbull says WA gets a "raw deal" from the GST carve-up. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer
It comes a day after Mr Turnbull said there would not be a "fistful of dollars" to give away in the May 3 budget.
The state believes it has been short-changed by $4 billion in the latest carve-up of GST revenue.
Police were forced to Taser a Perth man after he allegedly assaulted four police officers during a domestic violence call-out in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The 35-year-old man from Bedford broke a police officer's nose and injured three others as they attempted to restrain him, a police spokeswoman said.
A man has been tasered after assaulting four police officers. Credit:Steven Siewert
"Police were called to the house on Coode Street around 3.50am this morning in response to a domestic incident between the man and a woman," she said.
"As police entered the house, the man allegedly struck a male Constable causing facial injuries and a broken nose.
Thiruvananthapuram, India: A massive fire swept through a temple in India's southern Kerala state on Sunday, killing nearly 100 people and injuring more than 200 who had gathered for a fireworks display to mark the start of the local Hindu new year.
Thousands of devotees had packed into the Puttingal Devi temple in the coastal district of Kollam. The fireworks display began at midnight and went on for hours.
The fire started when one of the crackers fell onto a shed where the fireworks were stored, said residents near the temple site, about 70 kilometres from the state capital Thiruvananthapuram.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew to Kollam with a team of doctors to help state authorities cope with the large number of injured people, moving swiftly to pre-empt criticism over lack of public safety.
Washington: Many nations are pushing for swift ratification of a Paris agreement to slow climate change and lock it in place for four years before a change in the White House next year that might bring a weakening of Washington's long-term commitment.
More than 130 nations with 60 leaders including French President Francois Hollande are due to sign December's pact at a UN ceremony in New York on April 22, the most ever for a UN agreement on an opening day, the United Nations said.
United Nations climate change chief Christiana Figueres, left, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, French Foreign Affairs Minister and UN Climate Change Conference in Paris president Laurent Fabius and French President Franois Hollande celebrate an agreement on climate change on Sunday, December 13. Credit:AP
Both China and the United States, the world's top emitters accounting together for 38 percent of emissions, have promised to sign then. US Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to attend.
But signing is only a step in a tortuous UN process for the deal to enter into force, which requires formal approval by at least 55 nations representing 55 percent of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
British spy agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) stopped Harry Potter spoilers from leaking to the internet in the lead-up to a book release, its publisher has told ABC Radio.
Nigel Newton, the co-founder of publishing house Bloomsbury, printed Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone the first book in J.K. Rowling's acclaimed series about a boy wizard in July 1997.
By Christmas, it had sold 30,000 copies, and soon it was a worldwide phenomena. Speaking to Richard Fidler for ABC interview program Conversations, Newton said he had never seen readers respond to a series like they did to Harry Potter, and security was amped up accordingly.
"It was completely mad and we were at the eye of the storm," Newton said.
An unprecedented family feud between Singapore's prime minister and his sister over the death of their father Lee Kuan Yew has burst into the open in the strictly-controlled city-state.
Lee Hsien Loong said that he is "deeply saddened" that his sister Lee Wei Ling had accused him of abusing his power to commemorate the first anniversary of their father's death in order to establish a dynasty.
"The accusations are untrue," the prime minister said of the comments by Dr Lee, a well known neurosurgeon, on her Facebook page.
The feud is a political bombshell in Singapore where the People's Action Party founded by the elder Mr Lee has remained solidly united since taking power in 1959.
Isaiah Foskey's heroics on defense, special teams lead Notre Dame
No player in program Notre Dame history had ever blocked two punts in a game, much less a quarter, before Isaiah Foskey
Marquette springs upset, Slinger survives in football playoffs
The nine Milwaukee-area top-seeded football teams all won Friday night. The results across Level 1 set up some interesting games for the week ahead.
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Greenwich residents Jeffrey and Cai Pandolfino were sick and tired of feeling sick and tired when they finally decided to launch their local plant-focused chain, Green & Tonic, in March 2012.
Before opening the first brick-and-mortar location, the couple started selling its Clean Reset Plan, a three-day food and juice cleanse delivered all over Fairfield and Westchester counties. They initially tried an at-home delivery service, but quickly came to understand the real needs of their customers.
I think that food delivery business is really interesting, but feel consumers gets bored with that really, really quickly, Jeffrey Pandolfino said. We felt like customers were demanding human interaction a little bit more. Part of what were trying to do is create community to build a community of mindful eaters and thats really hard to do when youre dropping a bag off at someones house.
Last month, Green & Tonic closed on its third round of funding of $1 million, bringing its total close to $3 million. Investments have come from several high-net-worth angel investors in Fairfield County, as well as private equity funds. The company will seek additional funds as it tries replicate the model outside of Connecticut.
Were excited to have a new group of investors on board and to learn from their vision and experience with growing companies, Pandolfino said. We want to grow smart and make sure were growing a business for the future, not for today.
More locations
Pandolfino said the recent round of funding has three main objectives: building another high-revenue generating location, investing in technology and preparing the business for growth beyond Fairfield County. Right now, Green & Tonic has locations in Cos Cob, downtown Greenwich, Darien and New Canaan, and will use its latest investment to open a fifth in Westport.
The company will also make major updates to its website and e-commerce content and invest heavily in a mobile ordering and payment app.
The third objective, geographic expansion, should come later this summer. Theres opportunity to build and replicate the model in other markets, Pandolfino explained, with market research showing that places like Boston, Long Island and Washington, D.C., have similar demographics and complementary brands, like SoulCycle and Lululemon.
I think were fully committed to seeing growth beyond five units, and we see a day where we are in multiple markets with multiple units, he said. Were super excited for what is out in front of us nationally, and were focused on making the right partnerships not only with landlords, construction companies, but people working for us and with us, to make it happen.
The husband-wife team has been in the food industry for several years. Jeffrey served as director of operations at Pret A Manger and helped bring the chain to the United States, and Cai was the director of marketing at Cosi. The two also previously ran the catering company, Plum Pure Foods, from 2003 to 2008 in Cos Cob.
A few years ago, the Pandolfinos saw the raw-vegan culinary scene explode in New York City, and they noticed an opportunity to bring that same flavor to their own community. Greenwich, with its highly educated and health-focused consumer base, was a natural market.
People are starting to understand that the food they eat and put in their bodies, and the environment they come from, affects health, he said.
Massive growth
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the organic industry showed remarkable growth domestically and globally, with 19,474 certified organic operations in the United States. Since the count started in 2002, the number of domestic organic operations has increased by 250 percent.
Theres also been a steady increase in the number of adult vegetarians in the country, according to Harris Polls, which estimates about 8 million adults to be vegetarians, with vegans accounting for around 1 million.
The Green & Tonic menu includes local and organic ingredients and a diverse selection of breakfast, salad, wrap, soup and bowl options as well as pick-me-ups and spreads. Depending on the time of day, customers can order anything from raspberry lemon chia or granola bowls to cauliflower Caesar salad and spicy avocado wraps. The Pandolfinos work with their chef directly on research and development of all menu items.
In its first quarter of 2016, the company debuted 15 new menu items and plans to add additional options in the second quarter, including a brown rice wrap with black bean noodles, homemade protein bars and new salads.
The company also partners with local farms in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts when possible. Bill King, owner and founder of the Back 40 Farm Group, said they grow 2,500 kale plants for Green & Tonic on their 100-acre farm in Washington, Conn. King was also an investor in the most recent round of funding and has been involved with the company for many years. Their focus on the community, he said, makes the company unique.
Theyre 100 percent part of this community, and its done so well because they were personally asking themselves a lot of these questions about food, health, wellness and how you feed your kids better, he said. Theyre wrestling with the same thing so many of their clients are wrestling with.
Plenty of competition
Amid demand for healthy food, its become an increasingly competitive sector, Pandolfino said, though he doesnt think thats necessarily a bad thing. In Greenwich alone, theres a mecca of health-focused food and drink establishments, including Elixir, Robeks and Juice Press.
It has only helped our business, he said. Weve seen enormous growth in spite of there being more competition at the store level.
Margaret Beck, a frequent customer, discovered Green & Tonic two years ago and has been going ever since, attributing her loyalty to the companys quality of product and staff. The social worker splits her time between all four current locations.
I continually go back there because the food is packed with flavor, which you dont often find in vegan food, she said. Plus, they also have my favorite coffee in all of the area.
Pandolfino said the people-process-product emphasis drives their business. Over the years, they have built a culture of educated, friendly and knowledgeable employees who help create an environment comfortable and welcoming to all customers.
We have to have really, really good people on the front lines taking care of customers every day, he said. Without them, they are not coming back.
Megan.Dalton@scni.com; 203-625-4411
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GREENWICH On Sunday afternoon at the Old Greenwich Civic Center, Doug Hartman lingered by a table of clear 19th century decanters, trays and other glass objects, explaining they were products of the Sandwich Glass Co. of Massachuetts, examples of what he described as gothic glass.
As a collector, Hartman specializes in this type of glass, which was made between 1840 and 1880 using wood presses to mold molten globs of glass into shapes with fine traces of ornamentation, he said. He lifted one dining room vessel up and flicked it with a finger, creating a resonant ping, explaining the tone is created by the use of flint in the glass.
Im interested in 19th century American design, and a few museums have worthwhile displays on glassmaking, but not many, Hartman said. For the true collector, you come to the shows to learn.
Over two days on Saturday and Sunday, several hundred people browsed through dozens of tables stacked with displays of antique glassware, stoneware and ceramics at the 40th annual Westchester Collectors Glass and Ceramics Show and Sale. Alongside the odd 16th or 17th century flask and modern-day art glass were many pricey dining table relics of Americas Industrial Revolution and the glassmaking heritage of the central Connecticut and the western corner of the state.
For most collectors and dealers, the beauty of the glass and learning the hard-won science and discoveries that refined the technique of creating it are major draws of the show, said Jim Russell, co-president of the Westchester Glass Club, the event sponsor.
Its a really good show and an excellent opportunity for people to learn about glassmaking, Russell said. It is a field that is packed with history.
At the middle of the auditorium, Noel Tomas, president of the Museum of Connecticut Glass on Route 44 in Coventry, engaged history buffs around a table display stacked with19th century liquor flasks made in that Connecticut town. Some of them marked with pictures of the Marquis de Lafayette, the French aristocrat who fought with American forces in the Revolutionary War.
The Coventry Glassworks, active in the late 19th century, also pumped out thousands of inkwells that were used by schoolchildren, Tomas said.
There are several good books out now about glassmaking in Connecticut as well as documents in the state library that help you learn the history, said Tomas, a Glastonbury resident.
Scott Roland, owner of Schenevus, N.Y.-based Glimmerglass Antiques, pointed to a handful of colored glass decanters held in silver-plated receptacles. They originated in factories in Meriden in central Connecticut in the 19th century.
An electroplating process created in England was adopted by Connecticut firms, contributing to Meriden gaining the name, The Silver City, Roland said.
People at these shows are really glass specialists, and this show does a great job of picking some of the best vendors in the business, Roland said.
Roland lamented what he sees as a decline in the industry driven by the recession that started in 2007, and sustained by a lack of discretionary income among younger buyers.
It isnt like younger people arent interested in collecting things or have different brains, they just dont have the discretionary income, Roland said. My business is a third of what it was in 2007.
One of the younger enthusiasts at the show was Nick Wrobleski, a 16-year-old collector from Killingly who is on the board of the Connecticut Museum of Glass.
One of Wrobleskis prize possessions is a beaker with coat of arms of Duke Fredrick William I of Prussia from sometime in the early 18th century.
I think it is really interesting part of American and world history and an interesting art form, Wrobleski said.
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FAIRFIELD Christopher Shays turned a fashion statement into a political statement Friday. He wore a Donald Trump tie to rival presidential hopeful John Kasichs first public appearance in Connecticut.
And its made in China, Shays said, pointing out the duplicity in Trumps Make America Great message.
Shays introduced Kasich at a packed town hall at Sacred Heart University, telling the enthusiastic crowd that the Ohio governor was the most electable and substantive Republican in the race.
The 90-minute event marked the public debut of Kasich in a crucial state for the Trump competitor and potential spoiler, who is running a distant third to the real estate mogul and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the GOP nominating race. Connecticut holds its presidential primaries April 26.
By the way, Im the only candidate who consistently beats Hillary Clinton in the fall, Kasich said, delivering one of his biggest applause lines of the forum.
Some 1,300 people registered for the free event, some cramming into overflow rooms at the Catholic universitys Martire Business & Communications Center to watch Kasich on television screens. From her perch in the balcony, sophomore Karlee Picard, 20, took photos of the presidential contender with her iPhone after using Snapchat.
Just seeing him as a person was memorable, she said.
In Connecticut, 28 delegates are up for grabs for Republicans. Three in each of the states five congressional districts are awarded on a winner-take-all basis to the candidate with a plurality of votes. The remaining 13 at-large delegates are awarded proportionately to candidates who muster at least 20 percent of the vote statewide. They become winner-take-all if a candidate surpasses 50 percent of the total vote.
Im not playing for the sizzle, said Kasich, who was joined on a riser by state Sen. Tony Hwang, R-Fairfield, Kasichs Connecticut campaign chairman.
Kasich is indeed the anti-Trump, with just one major TV network reporter trailing him to Connecticut. Trump needs to win 61 percent of the remaining GOP delegates to reach the magic number of 1,237 required to clinch the nomination. His second-place finish to Cruz in Wisconsin this week has bolstered the argument of Kasichs Connecticut supporters that Trump cant get there.
As Republicans, we should be getting around people who can win elections, not just primaries or conventions, said former Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele of Stamford, who sat in one of the first few rows for Kasichs town hall.
So far, Kasich has won just his home state of Ohio site of this summers highly anticipated Republican National Convention. He potentially must also overcome a rule that requires GOP candidates to win a majority of delegates in at least eight states to be on the ballot at the convention.
The favorite among the establishment wing of the party in the state, which was well represented in the audience, Kasich said the nomination rules are subject to change if the convention is contested. Theres a major historical precedent, he said, of candidates trailing going into the convention and coming away with the nomination.
By the way, Abraham Lincoln went in, in fourth-place. But he printed up phony delegates passes, Kasich said, quipping, Are we working on that?
Not once did Kasich mention Trump or Cruz during the town hall, a format that Kasichs supporters say that the unscripted and conversational public servant thrives in.
Former state Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, who is supporting Kasich, sat in the front row.
I think (Kasich) is still probably lagging behind the Trump vote, McKinney said.
Citing the results in Wisconsin, McKinney said Trump appears to have peaked.
Thats going to have an impact on bringing Trumps numbers down and Kasichs up.
Trumps national campaign spokeswoman declined to comment.
Handing his fleece pullover with the Ohio flag on the arm to Shays, Kasich fielded half a dozen questions from audience members about a myriad of issues such as tax reform, fracking and the national educational initiative known as Common Core.
Kasich also took a jab at Connecticuts Democratic governor, Dannel P. Malloy, though not by name, for losing General Electrics Fairfield headquarters to Boston.
If I read about another company threatening to leave Connecticut, Kasich said. The proofs in the pudding. Connecticut needs to get its income tax down. It needs to stop punishing businesses.
Democrats in the state panned Kasich, saying that hes defunded Planned Parenthood in Ohio.
John Kasich wants Connecticut voters to believe that he is a sensible, moderate Republican, but his record as Ohio's governor is anything but moderate, said Alynn Woischke, executive director of the Connecticut Democrats.
It was Kasichs second visit to the state in 10 days. Last week, Kasich fundraised in Greenwich.
In a holding room, Shays jotted talking points for his introduction on note cards. The Stamford native and former longtime Bridgeport resident has accompanied Kasich to dozens of similar events in New Hampshire and Michigan.
I can do this in my sleep, Shays said.
neil.vigdor@scni.com; 203-625-4436; http://twitter.com/gettinviggy
Connecticut is once again banning the taking of Bluback herring and alewives from state inland and marine waters, continuing a prohibition that began in 2002 due to low populations.
The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said conservation efforts river runs of herring and alewives has still not returned to acceptable levels. The tiny fish are used by fisherman as bait.
Despite the conservation efforts taken by this agency and others over the past decade, the runs of river herring in Connecticut are still diminished, said DEEP Deputy Commissioner Susan Whalen. The best available data from this past year indicates that the closure of these fisheries must therefore remain in place.
Historically, millions of river herring returned to Connecticuts rivers and streams each year. More than 630,000 blueback herring were passed over the Holyoke Dam (Massachusetts) on the Connecticut River in 1985.
But by 2006, only 21 passed the Holyoke Dam, the lowest number in the history of the Holyoke Fishlift, DEEP said. The numbers have fluctuated since that time but have never surpassed 1,000.
In 2015 the number of fish passed was only 87. While river herring are not typically consumed by humans, they are important food to many species of freshwater and marine gamefish, as well as osprey, bald eagle, harbor seals, porpoise, egrets, kingfishers and river otter.
DEEP continues efforts to enhance river herring stocks by transplanting adult herring from streams with healthy runs into streams where runs have been eliminated or greatly depleted, removing obsolete dams and building fishways that allow fish to migrate past remaining dams.
In 2015, 20 miles of habitat were reconnected with removals of dams in Stonington, Preston, Lyme, and New Haven.
A quarter-century has passed since the settlement of a landmark federal lawsuit aimed at forcing Connecticut to take better care of its abused and neglected children.
Nearly everyone in the child-welfare system agrees those 25 years have witnessed substantial improvement in the performance of the state Department of Children and Families.
But caseworkers still struggle to keep up with the demands placed on them demands that have increased with the passing years.
Workers have massive caseloads and are tasked with trying to get children and families connected with resources that are few and far between, said Dennis Bieber, a licensed social worker who runs a private practice in Brookfield.
It really comes down to funding, Bieber added. I think thats where a lot of the struggles exist.
These conclusions are in line with those made in the latest report by Raymond Mancuso, who was appointed by the federal court to monitor state compliance with the settlement agreement.
The states fiscal commitment to improving child welfare case practice, as outlined in the exit plan, is not being properly attended to and it is compromising the safety and well-being of Connecticuts most vulnerable population, wrote Mancuso, himself a former DCF worker.
State spending on DCF has fallen from $852 million in fiscal year 2009 to about $791 million in 2015. During the same period, however, the number of children in DCF placements has declined from well over 5,000 to below 4,000.
DCF Commissioner Joette Katz, who lives in Fairfield, said the department has made important advances in child welfare in the last five years, reducing the share of abused and neglected children placed in institutions and increasing the proportion placed with relatives or foster care.
As a result of many reforms that have improved relationships with families and that build on family strengths to find solutions, we have 670 fewer children in care a reduction of 14 percent, Katz said. Just as important, we have doubled the percentage of children in care who live with relatives and kin to 41 percent, compared to just 21 percent in January 2011.
She said the department has reduced by 919, or 64 percent, the number of children living in a group setting.
But Katz acknowledged these efforts have increased demands on DCF staff, because working on family-oriented solutions requires more time and effort than group placement.
So while we maintain caseload standards, the actual amount of work has increased as we have improved with time, Katz said. While that makes the significant achievements of our staff even more impressive, we remain committed to making further improvements in the quality of our work because many vulnerable children and families depend upon us.
The federal monitoring of the states child welfare system dates to 1989, when New York City-based Childrens Rights, joined by Connecticut advocates, filed suit on behalf of Juan F against the governor and the DCF commissioner.
The parties settled two years later. DCF agreed to a plan, which has been revised over the years, to exit federal oversight by fully complying with 22 different performance measures.
Robert Francis, who worked for DCF as a regional director when Juan F. was filed, said he was one of many employees who thought change was desperately needed.
We saw it as a positive for the department, as we were frustrated in the inside with the way things were going, too, said Francis, executive director of the Regional Youth Adult Social Action Partnership in Bridgeport.
According to Mancusos January report, the department has complied with 16 of the 22 measures, including increased efforts to help children affected by human trafficking, a reduction in congregate care and increased use of family-based living arrangements.
Yet, these and many other improvements are consistently undermined by insufficient staffing, which translates into an overwhelming workload issue, the report said. There also continues to be insufficient community resources to address the need of children and families.
Most critically, the department has continuously failed to create adequate treatment plans for many of the children and families under its supervision. In addition, too few clients receive medical, mental health and other services specified in their treatment plans, according to the report.
In preparing his report, the federal monitor sampled 108 cases from April to September 2015 across the six DCF regions, which include 14 area offices.
Under the exit plan, DCF must have treatment plans meeting certain standards in 90 percent of its cases. The standards include having plans drafted by a team including the caseworker and approved by a DCF supervisor within 60 days after the case is opened.
In Region I, which serves clients in Bridgeport, Stamford and Greenwich, treatment plans met the required standards 41.7 percent of the time; in Region V, which includes Danbury, 40 percent; and statewide, 45.4 percent.
Attorney Ira Lustbader, litigation director for Childrens Rights, said without treatment plans, which he described as critical road maps, youre greatly lowering the odds for these kids.
Without a good treatment plan, people dont know what to do, agreed Steven Frederick, a Stamford attorney who is co-counsel with Childrens Rights.
One reason DCF struggles to meet this standard is treatment plans have become more complex over the years, said Paul Lavallee, president of AFSCME Local 2663, which represents DCFs social workers.
The exit plan requires that at least 80 percent of all families and children receive medical, dental, mental health and other service needs as specified in their treatment plans.
In Region 1, these needs were met 75 percent of the time, in Region V, 40 percent, and statewide, 50.9 percent.
Despite these deficiencies, many observers believe DCF is making progress.
Frederick said he hopes the state will exit federal monitoring in the next couple of years, although the current budget crisis could endanger that goal.
These are vulnerable and disenfranchised children and they need to be protected, he said. The state needs to understand that they need to be protected and need to allocate resources appropriately.
Lustbader said for many years state officials seemed more interested in breaking up the settlement than in complying with it, but no longer.
While we dont always agree, this administration has been the most serious about DCF reform in the whole history of the reform lawsuit, he said. And I think theyre the most able to achieve full compliance and exit.
mrigg@newstimes.com;
Donec
It is looking more and more like Republicans are heading toward a good old-fashioned brokered convention. And its going to be a bumpy ride for the Grand Old Party.
Lets start with history. In 1952 the Democrats had the last truly brokered convention and ended up drafting and nominating Adlai Stevenson after three ballots. On the Republican side, it is difficult to call it brokered given that Dwight Eisenhower always had the votes, they just didnt count until after the first round vote shifts, but it was technically brokered. However, neither of those two contests were the type of nasty, drag em out bouts we think of when we conjure up images of fighting for delegates on the convention floor.
The convention of 1860 was another story. Abraham Lincoln surprised everyone at our nations most significant brokered convention when he knocked out the heavy favorite, Senator William Seward, in three rounds. It was a bruiser in which Lincolns top attack dog, David Davis, wheeled and dealed to get Honest Abe the win. The list of other contestants in the fight, including Seward, reads like a whos who of Lincolns cabinet (I wonder how that happened?). Doris Kearns Goodwins book Team of Rivals is an excellent read for more on what happened with the main players in this convention fight (hint: they save a nation).
The most brutal of conventions was a nasty one on the Democratic side in 1924 known as the Klanbake. Yes, that Klan. They showed up white hoods and all to prevent the Roman Catholic and anti-prohibition candidate, Al Smith, from becoming the nominee. Fights literally broke out and it was the ugliest and longest contested convention in our history lasting 103 ballots. Check out Ken Burnss PROHIBITION for a glimpse inside this insanity (full disclosure, I worked for Mr. Burns from from 2008-2015).
Here is the good news. No matter what we think of Trumps vile rhetoric, the 2016 convention will not be as depraved as 1924. And although we have some incredibly pressing issues at home and abroad that our future president must face, they pale in comparison to abolishing slavery and holding the nation together through the Civil War. We will have a brokered convention on the Republican side, but it wont doom our nation (even if Trump becomes the nominee).
However, it may doom the Republican Party and set them up for yet another presidential loss. It is rare that the nominee from a contested convention, or nearly contested convention, goes on to win the Presidency. Lincoln is an obvious outlier, but that election is one the likes of which we will hopefully never have to see again.
Hubert Humphrey, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale are the last four nominees who had serious threats heading into the convention. All four lost.
With those exceptions, conventions have become highly produced, scripted lovefests for an already determined candidate. Some claim 2008 was close to being brokered. It was not. I was there and witnessed both Clintons singing Obamas praises. Im almost certain we all held hands and sung Kumbaya around a campfire at Mile High Stadium.
The 2016 Republican National Convention will be filled with a very different kind of fire. At this point with Wisconsin behind us it is nearly impossible for Trump to hit 1,237 on the first ballot. And the establishment does not want him getting it on the second one.
Countless influential Republicans have publicly stated they will not support Trump even if he becomes the nominee. The list ranges from personalities on the right like Glenn Beck, Tara Setmayer, and Erik Erickson to conservative writers like The Federalists Bethany Mandel and the Weekly Standards Bill Kristol; from radio hosts like Steve Deace in Iowa to well-regarded statesmen like former Governor George Pataki and former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. The establishment will do anything it can to prevent Trump from being the nominee.
Excluding the possibility of a compromise candidate (which historically wouldnt lead to a win, but might at least save the Party from itself), odds are the establishment gets Cruz. I wrote a couple months ago that primaries are a funny thing, but they arent funny enough to select Trump or Sanders. At the time, I thought Rubio would pick up the mantle, but he faltered and fell hard.
In my wildest dreams I never thought Cruz would be the guy the establishment turned to and neither did the establishment. Just ask Sen. Lindsay Graham, who likened the choice between Trump and Cruz as the difference between being shot and being poisoned. Graham chose poison, and the establishment is hoping the delegates will too.
But here is the thing about choosing whether to be shot or poisoned: You lose either way.
Dan Roberti, of Kent, worked for political strategist James Carville from 2005-2006 and was endorsed by President Bill Clinton in his 2012 run for Congress in Connecticuts 5th District.
A BQ, the RV trailer revamped as a cocktail-making lab in the style of the hit Netflix series Breaking Bad, is to become a permanent fixture in the capital.
The bar offers an ultimate Breaking Bad experience, with the chance to cook a range of cocktails from a manual not menu while wearing a Walter White meth-making suit.
The regularly sold-out Shoreditch pop-up is to become a permanent bar later this year, says founder Sebastian Lyall, although he is still looking for investors to back the plans.
A new drink is also being cooked in the lab Fly is a molecular twist on a bramble, using apple-infused gin and cranberry caviar instead of grenadine.
London's most bizarre pop-ups 1 /13 London's most bizarre pop-ups All Men Must Dine
In the land of Kings and Queen's their feasts are mouth-watering and exquisitely presented. The London pop-up 'All Men Must Dine' saw HBO and The Wandering Chef team up to create an intimate experience of a Game of Thrones style feast. The two-day takeover gave the opportunity to dine like Kings, which doesn't happen often.
Read our article HBO Death Cafe
Not many people like to talk about death, or at least you'd think not. According to the success of the global Death Cafe pop-up a lot of people want to talk about mortality. Having travelled across 30 countries, the Death Cafe is certainly thriving with activity.
Read our article Stevie The Fox
The fascination over animals being in restaurants seemed to have become a craze when a London pop-up restaurant wanted to get foxes into their eating establishment. Fortunately, the not-so-tame animals were saved by animal rights activists, and Stevie The Fox didn't get round to popping up.
Check out our article Tincan
This pop-up did exactly what it said on the tin. There was no need for a kitchen when all they sold was tinned fish. The Soho pop-up restaurant stocked all different brands of fish, some costing up to 22.
Check out our article Paul Winch-Furness MicroChippy
Who says you need to leave your animal at home anymore? MicroChippy was a pop-up dog diner that arrived for Valentine's Day 2016, and provided an opportunity for dateless people to venture out with their four-legged friends instead. Sponsored by Dog's Trust, the 1950's style diner treated canines to a dog-friendly hot dog, whilst treating people to a hot dog and champagne.
Check out our article Annie the Owl Cafe
Another trend that arrived in London from Japan was the Owl Cafe. The wide-eyed birds of prey were put in a secret location in East London, and soon became flooded with applicants wanting to experience this Japanese trend. Over 60,000 people applied, and only 500 were given a ticket. What a hoot!
Read our article Trendy Creme Egg Cafe
The weird and wonderful surprise of the Creme Egg Cafe opening in London caused a joyous outburst from the British public. The bizarre menu saw an appearance of the 'Creme Egg Toastie'. It's uncertain whether it was delicious or gross, but a Creme Egg should only ever be eaten as a chocolate egg. No eggsplanation needed.
Check out our article Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium
The animal fascination continues, but Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium had more of a feline feel. Following Japan's cat craze, London became home to the London's first cat cafe, began by Lady Dinah and her love for cats.
ladydinahs.com John Stillwell/ PA Wire London In The Sky
This bizarre pop-up restaurant took customers to new heights, quite literally. While suspended 25 metres above London, customers were treated to a once in a lifetime opportunity to receive great food with a great view.
Read our article ABQ
TV Series inspired pop-ups can work really well. ABQ is all about chemistry, and arrived in London in May 2015 for fans of Breaking Bad to put their chemistry skills to the test. Instead of cooking, well, illegal drugs, customers were instead lured in to cook up their own cocktails.
Read our article
ABQ stands for Albuquerque, in New Mexico, where the popular TV series was set, explains Lyall.
He said: There are a lot of things inside the RV which are inspired by New Mexico.
What I love about Breaking Bad is the way it is shot, the story behind it is a transformation of a very simple, humble man into a monster.
Londoners demand an experience when they go out and the idea behind ABQ was to give them an experience, and Breaking Bad is the icing on the cake.
The trailer is currently located behind the Ace Hotel in Shoreditch until it sets off for a road trip to Paris in May, before returning to the capital as a permanent fixture.
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P olice in Sweden are hunting an arsonist suspected of torching a Muslim school before nearly running over a police officer during the getaway.
Malmo police spokesman Clas Svensson said the fire late Saturday in the south-western city was under control and no one was hurt.
According to Swedish news agency TT, a police patrol car tried to attempt to halt the suspected getaway vehicle, with officers opening fire when it failed to stop.
Police were still searching for the suspected arsonist on Sunday.
There have been several attacks against schools and refugee centres in the Scandinavian country, which has one of the highest per capita migrant intakes in Europe.
Additional reporting by PA
P ilots today called for laser pens to be labelled offensive weapons as it emerged police in the UK respond to thousands of incidents a year.
Since 2014 there have been almost 6,500 police reports involving laser pens, including shining them into aeroplane cockpits, at oncoming traffic and into people's front rooms.
This includes officers responding to more than 400 cases of aircraft being targeted as well as dozens of emergency service helicopters.
In February a Virgin Atlantic flight to New York JFK was forced to return to Heathrow as a "precautionary measure" after a laser was shone at the cockpit.
And just nine days later a British Airways service from Amsterdam was affected when a beam was aimed at the aircraft as it headed towards the west-London hub.
Dangerous: Police shared an image of how a laser beam appears inside an aircraft's cockpit / @MPSHeathrow/Twitter
The shocking figures have prompted pilots union the British Airline Pilots Association to warn the consequences could soon be disastrous.
UK forces with the most reports Greater Manchester Police - 1039 Northumbria Police - 566 Sussex Police - 561 Kent Police - 438 South Wales Police - 388 South Yorkshire Police - 349 Derbyshire Police - 292 Cheshire Police - 284 Hertfordshire Constabulary - 265 Staffordshire Police - 213
Stephen Landells, flight safety expert at Balpa, said that the power and build quality of lasers was being improved so now users can basically blind someone from nearly a kilometre away.
He added: "Any single-pilot operation, be it helicopter or light aircraft, if you take away the pilots vision at night the consequences could be disastrous.
Mr Landells said the law needed to change so people had to have a good reason to be carrying a laser, which would allow the police to act when they had reasonable suspicion of misuse.
"If the police get a report that aircraft are being lasered going into Heathrow and they find someone standing there with a laser in their pocket, there is nothing they can do at the moment because lasers don't come under the offensive weapon legislation," he said.
"The law says you can't carry a knife without good reason - a carpet fitter going into a building in the afternoon has a reason to carry a knife. But someone walking down the street at 11pm outside a pub doesn't.
The figures have been unearthed from police forces across the country following a Freedom of Information request.
They show Greater Manchester Police dealt with the most incidents since 2014, with officers being called out 1,039 times. In 156 of the occasions, an aircraft was involved.
The Metropolitan Police declined to supply figures for the capital.
A 50-year-old man was seriously injured during an assault in west London in the early hours of this morning.
The victim was found slumped unconscious in the street in Southall shortly after midnight, police said.
He was taken to hospital with severe head injuries, with his attacker or attackers apparently having fled the scene.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said his condition was serious but stable.
Detectives are appealing for information regarding the incident at the junction between Portland Road and Osterley Park Road.
Contact police at Ealing CID via 101, quoting reference 2508523/16 or call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
A man from Kent has been sentenced to 16 months in prison for causing the death of a teenage motorist in a motorway smash.
Paul Martin Jeffree, 58, of Marsham Street in Maidstone was sentenced at Guildford Crown Court after pleading guilty to causing death by driving without due care and attention at an earlier hearing.
He admitted the charges following the fatal collision on the M3 near Sunbury-on-Thames, on October 10, 2014.
The incident took place on the northbound carriageway of the motorway, between junctions 2 and 1, at about 11.18pm.
Jeffree's Vauxhall Zafira collided with a Toyota IQ2 which was stopped in traffic, causing the car to burst into flames.
The driver of the Toyota, 18-year-old Charlotte Emily Riches from Basingstoke, suffered serious injuries and was taken to St George's Hospital in Tooting but later died in hospital.
Jeffree will have to serve a minimum of eight months in jail, has been disqualified from driving for three years and will also have to take an extended driving test before being allowed to get back behind the wheel.
Sergeant Eddie Ryan, from the Surrey Police Collision Investigation Unit, said: "This was a tragic incident where a young girl lost her life as a result of Jeffree's irresponsible driving."
S cotland Yard today criticised internet "paedophile hunters" - days after they helped convict a sex predator.
Detectives warned the self-styled vigilantes could jeopardise investigations and put victims in harm's way.
The slap-down comes days after a group dubbed the Internet Interceptors snared 31-year-old predator Daniel Mullarkey, who was hoping to meet a 14-year-old schoolgirl for sex.
The vigilantes confronted the man at the location he had arranged to meet the girl in an intervention that led to his arrest.
They had communicated with Mullarkey, of Croydon, after posting a profile on an adult online dating site.
Mullarkey exchanged a series of messages with someone who he believed to be a 14-year-old girl and eventually arranged to meet up with her in a park in South Norwood on January 20.
But he was confronted by the group who later posted footage of the encounter online.
In the video, Mullarkey tries to lie his way out of trouble as the men tell him to remove his hood so they can identify him.
One says: "You're here to meet a 14-year-old child for sex aren't you?
"What [were] you going to do to her, rape her?"
The amateur investigation was cited by prosecutors during Mullarkeys trial at Croydon Crown Court and earlier this week he was sentenced 16 months imprisonment, suspended for two years.
He pleaded guilty to attempting to meet a girl under the age of 16 after grooming her online.
But a Scotland Yard spokeswoman said the Met did not support activities by individuals to target suspected paedophiles.
She said: This type of action could jeopardise or interfere with on-going investigations, and our advice to anyone who has information about suspected child sexual abuse - online or otherwise - is to contact police so we can investigate and, where possible, bring people to justice.
Revealing the identity of a potential suspect could give them the opportunity to destroy evidence before police become involved.
Suspended sentence: Daniel Mullarkey, 31
It could also lead to individuals taking action in an attempt to evade police.
This can divert significant policing resources which would be better invested in investigating and, where there is evidence, prosecuting individuals.
Most importantly, those undertaking this type of activity cannot fully assess any risk associated to victims and their families.
Internet Interceptors, who have criticised Mullarkey's sentence as too lenient, said they did not "target" anyone because it was him who made the initial contact with the fake victim.
A spokesman said: "We conduct our online operations much as the police would do but without the red tape and thousands in costs to bring one paedophile to the courts and get a conviction.
Examples of some of the messages Mullarkey sent the invented 14-year-old girl / Internet Interceptors
"As for jeopardising a case, we do not agree because we have all the evidence ready and waiting to hand to police."
He added: "We will not stop bringing these people to the attention of the mums and dads and family members who make up our communities.
"Far too many of these cases never reach the public."
Mullarkey must also complete 200 hours community service work; sign the sex offenders register for 10 years; obey a five-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order and was placed on a barring list preventing him working with children and vulnerable adults.
C ampaigners are furious at Southwark Councils plans to dig up graves and destroy woodland due to a shortage of burial plots.
Southwark Council says that it could run out of burial space by 2017 and is planning to create up to 4,845 new plots in Camberwell Old and New Cemeteries.
But the Save Southwark Woods campaigners fear the councils strategy could also see old graves dug up for re-use and the destruction of the areas green space, which has mostly been used as a park by the local community.
A petition to turn the cemeteries green space into a natural reserve has been signed by more than 11,000 supporters.
Campaigners are fighting to save Camberwell cemeteries' green space
Blanche Cameron, from Save Southwark Woods, said: There are hundreds of people with relatives in these cemeteries who are furious, and they will not give up the graves of their ancestors for Southwark Council to dig them up or mound them over to make profit.
A spokesperson from Southwark Council said that there are some mistruths being spread about the councils plans for the cemeteries and added that it is has not committed to re-using graves.
The Law allows the excavation of graves older than 75 years but, according to the council, this would require public consultation, cabinet approval, and legal guidance.
The council also discarded the possibility of using another cemetery for new burials a solution that has been proposed by campaigners.
There are only three working cemeteries in Southwark, with most taking place in Camberwell New Cemetery, and a consistent demand for places, the spokesperson said.
Not only would it be expensive [to use a cemetery outside the borough], it would also be unfair to expect residents to travel outside the borough to visit the graves of their loved ones.
The campaigners also fear the council will destroy 12 acres of woodland and biodiversity they see as crucial for the communitys well-being.
There is a well-being factor to people being in green spaces, for children growing up with a green space at their door step, where they can walk and feel lost in the wilderness, said Abby Taubin from the campaign.
We are saying that we need respect for the dead, but we need the trees for the living.
Southwark Council stressed that the plan is to fell a maximum of 45 trees and it is waiting on permission from the Diocese of Southwark, who manages the consecrated areas, to proceed. So far, it has felled ten trees with some diseased, dying or poor quality, it said.
Everybody is watching this. This isnt just about Southwark or two small cemeteries in Southwark, this is about the whole country, said Blanche Cameron.
After a year of an on-going battle between campaigners and Southwark Council, a full decision on the plans for Camberwell Old and New cemeteries should be taken later this year, but the council didnt specify when exactly this would happen.
A London hospital has apologised after a porn film was broadcast to a horrified mum-to-be in one of their waiting rooms.
Loredana Sueleru claims she witnessed the x-rated scenes while waiting to be seen for stomach pains at the Northwick Park Hospital maternity unit in Harrow.
Ms Sueleru, who is 23 weeks pregnant and was with her husband Narces at the time, told the Star on Sunday: We had a big surprise and we filmed it. It is disgusting. It is wrong. It is not appropriate.
The 24-year-old, who was waiting for 20 minutes, said she had expected to see a film about breast-feeding or something more appropriate for a maternity unit rather than explicit sex.
She said: We wanted to tell someone what we were seeing, but there were no staff to tell. I didnt see anyone.
A hospital spokesman said: We would like to apologise to the couple concerned for the upset caused.
This was a genuine error with a digital TV channel having been on which, between 2am and 3am, broadcasts material of an adult nature.
If our staff had been made aware then they would have changed the channel immediately.
T he Archbishop of Canterbury has been praised by faith leaders for the way he revealed that his biological father was not the man he first thought.
The Most Rev Justin Welby, who believed his father was Gavin Welby, said on Friday it was "a complete surprise" to find through DNA evidence that his father is the late Sir Anthony Montague Browne - Sir Winston Churchill's last private secretary.
In a statement he said: "I know that I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes."
His mother, Lady Williams of Elvel, 86, described the revelation as "an almost unbelievable shock", but added she recalls going to bed with Sir Anthony "fuelled by a large amount of alcohol on both sides".
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster and the UK's most senior Catholic cleric, tweeted that he was praying for the Archbishop and his mother and said: "Our life in Christ matters most of all."
The Bishop of Norwich, Graham James, told BBC Radio 5 live that the Archbishop took the DNA test thinking it would be disproved, and commended his "maturity".
He said: "For the Archbishop I think of course it is a surprise but he is dealing with it, I talked to him quite a lot last week, he is dealing with it with his usual maturity.
"His identity is secure, he feels the same person that he was three weeks ago.
"It's intriguing but he finds himself in the position of many other people who discover their father is rather different from the person they thought."
Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, from Maidenhead Synagogue, told the Sunday Telegraph that the Archbishop had set a "good example" of how to deal with unexpected news.
He said: "The news does not affect his personal identity in any way - he is who he has become - nor does it lessen his authority as Archbishop."
Bishop Anba Angaelos, the General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom, quoted a long passage from the Archbishop's statement on his website saying it was "very moving" and "indicative of the peace, love, forgiveness and resolve that we are not only all called to, but all endowed with if we but allow God's healing, reconciling and comforting presence in our lives".
He added: "These revelations would have been startling and painful enough for any individual and his family to learn and process, but to have them revealed and discussed so publicly will need a very particular grace."
Additional reporting the Press Association.
A rmy badges stolen from an SAS hero hailed for his role in ending the Iranian Embassy siege have been returned to his family.
The SAS and Parachute Regiment cap badges belonged to John McAleese and were stolen during a burglary at his Hereford home.
Mr McAleese was part of the team which helped end the six-day siege after a group of six armed men stormed the embassy in London in 1980 and took 26 people hostage.
The siege unfolded when six armed men stormed the South Kensington building, and a television audience of millions watchedas a dramatic SAS raid - known as Operation Nimrod - brought the situation to an end.
Missing: The cap badges belonging to John McAleese were stolen during a burglary at his home (Fiona Hanson/PA Wire ) / Fiona Hanson/PA Wire
The badges were found in a drug dealer's car in 2010, but 62-year-old Mr McAleese died from a heart attack while on holiday in Greece before they could be returned to him.
However, a former Army colleague, PC Alan Reeves from West Midlands Police, helped to trace his family and return them.
PC Reeves made repeated attempts to contact his next of kin without success including enquiries through the SAS base in Hereford until a former army colleague responded to a Facebook message last year and put him in touch with one of Mr McAleeses daughters.
Were delighted to finally have the badges backI know its been a bit of a mission of Alans to return them and were extremely grateful for his time and effort," his widow Joanna said.
The badges were very dear to Johns heart and he was gutted to find theyd been taken. They will be returned pride of place in a glass display cabinet alongside other memorabilia from Johns time in the SAS.
P rince William and Kate touched down in Mumbai today for the start of their whistle-stop tour of India and Bhutan.
They arrived ahead of schedule on a British Airways flight from London for their seven-day trip.
Security was tight around the couple after reports last week of a possible terror threat in India.
There was no official welcoming ceremony at the airport and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge went straight off in a convoy to The Taj Palace Hotel for their first engagement.
The couple will pay tribute to the 31 staff and guests who died in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
William and Kate will also meet some of the employees who were working during the siege who saved hundreds of guests from the terrorists.
The couple left their children, Prince George, two, and 11-month-old Princess Charlotte, back home. Kates parents, Michael and Carole Middleton, and their Spanish nanny, Maria Borrallo, are looking after them.
They are carrying out 22 engagements into just seven days in order to return home to see their children soon.
Mumbai, known as Bombay until 1995, is their first stop.
It is Indian's second most populated city and - also its richest - a favourite for the country's billionaires.
William and Kate will learn about the work of charities in India's slums before flying to Delhi.
The Duchess of Cambridge chose an Alexander McQueen dress for her arrival in Mumbai.
She is expected to showcase a number of Indian designers with her choice of outfits during the couples tour of India and Bhutan.
But she played it safe with one of her favourite fashion houses for the countrys first sight of her.
Her red, paisley-themed outfit with a shirt split at the front over a black underskirt borrowed heavily from Asian tradition, while the Duke opted for a navy blue suit.
Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrive in Mumbai 1 /10 Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrive in Mumbai First stop: The royal couple will visit Mumbai before continuing their tour Remembering: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are shown around the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, the scene of the Mumbai terror attacks eight years ago Getty Royal welcome: Prince William waves after arriving at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel Visit: The couple will spend seven days touring India and Bhutan Arrival: The Duke and Duchess paid their respects to the 31 hotel staff and guests killed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks PA Making an entrance: The Duchess's wore an Alexander McQueen outfit that borrowed heavily from Asian tradition Respects: Prince William and Kate lay a tribute during their visit to the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel Whistle-stop: The world's media have followed the royal couple on their week-long tour
The Duke and Duchess placed a wreath of white lilies between 32 burning candles, with the message: In memory of those who lost their lives and those injured in the senseless atrocities at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. Willam, Catherine.
The royal couple are staying at the hotel as a show of support for the city in the wake of the attacks, which remain fresh in the memory eight years on.
A total of 31 staff and guests were killed in the assault, as well as the hotels labrador guard dog, Lucy. Next to a waterfall in an atrium of the hotel all 32 names are inscribed on a wall, under the words: For now and forever you will inspire us.
At the memorial they were introduced to hotel chef Raghu Deora, 41, who was shot in the stomach and in the leg as he helped guests to safety.
The Duke asked him about what happened on the day, while the Duchess said: It must have been a surreal time.
Mr Deora said: The Duke asked me what happened to me and I explained how I was shot. He asked me how long I took to recover, and I said six months, with the last operation two years ago.
The Duchess asked him about his cooking, and if he had a speciality, to which he replied that he specialised in local dishes.
Mr Deora also cooked the couples lunch, which included a starter of vegetable kebabs and main courses including lentil curry with rice, ricotta cheese and okra.
He said: It is all vegetarian because I was told that was what they preferred.
Travellers in India often avoid eating meat to minimise the risk of food poisoning.
A Kensington Palace spokesman said: "Upon their arrival this morning The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were informed about the tragic fire in Kollam.
"Their Royal Highnesses are saddened by the news and send their thoughts to all who are assisting the victims."
A tractor driver has suffered serious injuries after a train carrying 135 people hit his vehicle at a Norfolk level crossing.
The train driver was also taken to hospital and three other people on board suffered minor injuries during the crash in Roudham, near Thetford.
British Transport Police said they were called to the railway line at 12.36pm after reports of the crash.
He said: "Two men, the train driver and the driver of the tractor, have been taken to Norfolk and Norwich Hospital for treatment.
The driver of the tractor has sustained serious, although not life-threatening, injuries. The train driver's injuries are not thought to be serious.
Passenger Alex Youngs tweeted photos of a smashed window in the train carriage and emergency services at the scene.
He wrote: Caught up in a train smash on the way to Thetford. Everyone seems ok, driver injured but only panic attacks reported.
Passengers travelling in the Norwich area were warned to expect delays and advised to check with National Rail before setting off.
B elgian prosecutors say the terror cell involved in the Brussels bombings had been planning to stage a new attack in France.
Mohamed Abrini - who yesterday confessed to being the "man in the hat" caught by security footage at Brussels Airport - told investigators they had planned a second strike on Paris.
But after Salah Abdeslam was arrested over suspected links to November's deadly attacks in the French capital, the terrorists focused efforts on alternative targets in Brussels.
Belgian investigators said "the goal of the terrorist group was to strike again in France", adding that the Belgium-based cell was "taken aback by the investigation" and "decided in a hurry to hit Brussels".
Detained: Mohamed Abrini / Belgian Federal Police via AP
Mohamed Abrini was detained by police on Friday, and told investigators he was at the scene of the suicide bombings in the Belgian capital.
Abrini, who was one of six men arrested in Brussels, was also wanted in connection with the attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.
Four of the arrested men have been charged with terror offences.
On Saturday evening federal prosecutors said in a statement: "The federal prosecutor is now able to confirm that Mohamed Abrini is the third man present during the attacks at Brussels National Airport. He was confronted with the results of various expert and admitted his presence at the facts."
From early indications, farmers will have plenty of water for the 2016 irrigation season. That was the message delivered by staff members of the Wyoming U.S. Bureau of Reclamation office Thursday morning during the annual spring water operations report.
According to Carlie Ronca, manager in the Bureaus Mills, Wyoming, office, the water supply is at or above average, with a good carry-over. We dont know whats coming, but right now, we dont anticipate an allocation, she told a sparse audience in the UNL Panhandle Research and Extension Center Auditorium. Without major issues, producers tend to skip the spring meeting in favor of preparing for the growing season.
With still some time left in which to gain snowpack in the Rocky Mountains, reservoir conditions could hardly be better. Seminoe, with 707,599 acre-feet, is 70 percent full, with a supply at 143 percent of average. Pathfinder is 81 percent full, holding 865,691 acre-feet, at 150 percent of average. Glendo stands at 388,575 acre-feet, or 79 percent full, and at 97 percent of average. This is due to water management decisions. Guernsey Reservoir holds 26,355 acre-feet, which is 58 percent full, and 126 percent of average.
Total storage for the system as of April 4, is 2,154,842 acre-feet. This compares to 1,948,251 a-f in 2015, 1,300,765 a-f in 2014, and 1,428,139 a-f in 2013.
Ownership in Pathfinder is 820,343 a-f, or 77 percent of full. Guernsey has 45,564 a-f, and is 100 percent full. Guernsey ownership filled on March 25, 2016. The Inland Lakes are 44 percent full, with 20,316 a-f. Dennis Strauch, general manager of the Pathfinder Irrigation District, expects to begin transferring water to the Inland Lakes the last week in April. Glendos irrigation pool stands at 95,070 a-f, or 95 percent full.
The estimated April to July runoff forecast into Seminoe is 680,000 a-f, or 99 percent of average. A high of 1,079 a-f was in 2014, and the recent low was 268,000 a-f in 2012. Runoff in the Sweetwater basin is expected to be 60,000 a-f, 113 percent of average. In 2014 runoff was 42,000 a-f, but only 10,000 a-f in 2013. The Alcova to Glendo reach is expected to deliver 150,000 a-f, or 115 percent of average. Runoff reached 238,000 a-f in 2014, but only 47,000 a-f in 2012.
Total system storage at the end of September, 2015, was 1,893,100 a-f, or 136 percent of average. The average end of irrigation season storage in the system is 1,392,900 a-f. The minimum storage expected this year is 1,523,000 a-f.
With a forecast supply of 1,670,000 a-f, and an approximate irrigation demand of 1.1 million a-f, Ronca said an allocation is not expected at this time.
One item of interest to all irrigators downstream from Guernsey Reservoir, is the renovation project proposed for the spillway gate at Guernsey Dam. The estimated $4.3 million project will begin after the 2016 irrigation season, and will be completed in time for the 2017 season.
According to Ronca, contracts are expected to be awarded in July, with work to begin October 1.
Area irrigation districts are preparing for 2016 deliveries. Strauch anticipates an early May start on deliveries, depending on demand. Other districts will make those decisions during their April meetings.
It was a day of learning and fun at the Riverside Discovery Center for the annual Teddy Bear Clinic.
Various stuffed animals went through a medical check-up at the Riverside Discovery Center on April 9. Although they were not able to speak for themselves, children were present as representatives for the animals to let medical professionals know what they think might be wrong with them.
The event is a way for children to get accustomed with medical procedures and see what they might go through themselves when they visit a doctors office.
Wendy Wells, population health instructor with University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing, said that the Teddy Bear Clinic is an event that encourages children to come to the RDC with their stuffed animal for a basic assessment performed by UNMC students.
We check their head, their ears, and their eyes, their reflexes, and their tummy, said Wells, its just to show them what an exam they might have will look like so they are comfortable with that and let them know that animals need check-ups too.
Anne James, executive director for RDC, said that the event was started in the 1990s. There was a period it was not apart of RDC, but resurged again in the last four years with the partnership of UNMC.
Its just a great way for kids to come out and interact with their family and enjoy all of the animals at the zoo as well as the fun things we have for kids to do, said James. Its perfect weather, great to bring a teddy bear for.
Last year there was almost 600 people that came and the attendance was expected to go beyond that.
The children that came were able to help as much as they could, using the instruments and performing basic procedures. Altogether there were four assessment stations, a first aid station, a station with stickers and another one where the Area Health Education Center provided coloring pages about health careers. There was also an area for crafts at the Heritage Barn.
Four nursing students, one medical students, and two of Wells own students volunteered for the event.
The medical student was Lindsay Leikam, junior, who is in the area for family medicine clerkship rotation. She said that she was talking to children about the importance of check-ups and the importance of listening to their insides to make sure everything is healthy.
Ive heard lots of healthy teddy bears, bunnies, and unicorn hearts, said Leikam
Wells said its an opportunity for the students to get out in the public to share what nursing is as a career. The students have other opportunities such as Safe Kids Day, YMCA C.H.I.P. Day, and other various events like helping with school screenings.
Wells said that the students were able to talk to the children and explain what they were doing while working on the animals, as a way to strengthen their own skills.
A lot of them want to work with children as a career so its a nice fun activity for them to do, said Wells.
This was the first event that was planned for the spring and summer at RDC. James said there will be many more to come during the spring and summer. Theres a new baby zebra at RDC as well as other interactive areas for children to get involved in. The staff is also expecting new tigers in the zoo later this summer.
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) Two Wood River men have pleaded guilty and been fined in the killing of sandhill cranes and dumping of dead snow geese last month in east-central Nebraska.
Marco Zarraga was fined $525 and Adam Wagner $300 on Thursday in Hall County Court, the Grand Island Independent reported (http://bit.ly/1VHy9Su ). With costs, Zarraga, 20, paid a total of $573. Wagner, 24, paid $348.
On March 14, 150 to 200 dead snow geese were found in Merrick County. Days later, 10 dead snow geese and three sandhill cranes were left near Grand Island.
Authorities have said Zarraga killed the three cranes.
The cranes were shot with a rifle, said Nebraska Game and Parks conservation officer Tim Williams. Wagner was an accessory, Williams said.
It's illegal to hunt sandhill cranes in Nebraska. Shooting snow geese is not a crime this time of year, but authorities said dumping the geese amounted to littering and shooting them from a roadway and from a vehicle was illegal.
Williams said another Hall County resident has been cited in Merrick County Court, but Merrick County Attorney Lynelle Homolka had not filed formal charges by Friday.
Western Nebraska Community College is hosting a Health Professions Open House April 13 at 6 p.m. in the John N. Harms Advanced Technology Center on the Scottsbluff Campus.
The open house is free and open to students, parents, and the public to discuss health career opportunities. Attendees will be able to visit with WNCC faculty and staff about a career in healthcare including Basic Nursing Assistant, Emergency Medical Technician, Health Information Technology, Nursing, Phlebotomy, Radiology Technologist, and Surgical Technology.
The open house provides opportunity for anyone who might be interested in pursuing a career in healthcare to come in and see what is available right here in the panhandle, said Surgical Technology Director Rob Frey. It also opens a channel for them to meet the faculty, see classrooms, labs and technologies, speak with current students about the programs, and meet professionals from these careers who are currently employed in this region.
It is our hope that it not only encourages individuals to enroll here at WNCC, but also helps them to make a more informed decision about their future, he added.
Light refreshments will be served. The event will conclude at 8 p.m.
For more information, contact WNCC Admissions Office at 308.635.6010 or admissions@wncc.edu.
The financial advice industry is about to go through its biggest regulatory change in decades, but many retirement savers may not even notice.
When a new Labor Department regulation takes full effect in 2018, Americans with Individual Retirement Accounts and 401(k) plans will finally get the unbiased advice they think theyve had all along.
Under the existing rules, they werent always getting that. As long as an investment was broadly suitable, many investors got the product that was most profitable for the broker instead of the one that was best for them.
That has to end under final rules published Wednesday by the Labor Department. The rules require retirement-account advisers to act as fiduciaries, which means they must always act in the clients best interest.
The final rules make some concessions to the financial industry, which fought the fiduciary standard for years. The Labor Department gave firms longer to comply, and it eased some disclosure and paperwork requirements.
Still, some firms traditional business models face a big challenge. High-commission annuity sales and kickbacks from mutual funds will be allowed, but they must be justified under the best-interests standard.
That may be difficult or, at any rate, the higher standard may make firms compliance departments nervous. Michael Wong, an analyst at Morningstar, says at least $2.4 billion of revenue is at risk.
That includes commissions and surrender fees on variable annuities and fixed-index annuities, commissions on alternative assets like hedge funds, and revenue-sharing payments that mutual funds make to brokers.
He sees retirement money flowing into low-cost index funds and exchange-traded funds, and out of annuities sold by insurance companies.
Winners and losers are already becoming apparent.
We have already seen tens of billions of dollars of market capitalization shift among different firms in the wealth management sector because of this rule, Wong said.
Jamie Hopkins, who teaches retirement-investing classes for advisers at the American College of Financial Services in Bryn Mawr, Pa., says the Labor Departments final rule addressed some of firms biggest gripes about earlier versions.
People have stopped complaining about being under a fiduciary standard and started looking at this as something we can implement, Hopkins said.
Brokerage firms and their legislative allies such as Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin have claimed that the rule would hurt investors of modest means. They argued that small accounts would become unprofitable, and that advisers who served them would be forced out of business.
You never know if thats a legitimate risk, or if thats just a threat you hear from people who are against change, Hopkins said. Could some business models not be able to support lower-income clients? Thats a possibility. I do believe that there will be companies out there whose business models still serve that market.
One example might be Edward Jones, which is piloting a fee-based account for people with as little as $5,000 to invest. Others would include the online advisory services offered by Charles Schwab, Vanguard Group and others.
So the proverbial little guy can still find retirement advice in this new world order. If he can no longer get advice from some people who were in the business before, its no great loss. Conflicted advice from sellers of high-cost products was almost certainly doing more harm than good.
The evolving U.S. retirement system requires workers to make investment choices that once were handled by company pension managers. At long last, workers can be assured of the honest advice they need to make those decisions.
Evelyn Bowles, who served as a teacher, Coast Guard yeoman, longtime Madison County clerk and member of the Illinois Senate, died Friday (April 8, 2016) in Edwardsville. She was 94.
She was a master politician who had an almost magical bond with the voters. And thats because they were her people and she took care of her people, and there was a connection that made her undefeatable, said her longtime friend, Stephanie Robbins.
Ms. Bowles, who was born in Worden and raised in Livingston, swore in Robbins as the first female assistant states attorney in Madison County in 1976.
Ms. Bowles was one of a handful of Metro East political figures whose first name was enough to identify her. She was an independent Democrat whose popularity with voters came in part because she regularly bucked the party hierarchy.
She was an elementary school teacher and then a World War II Coast Guard Reserve intelligence officer before accepting a summer typing job in Madison County with County Clerk Eulalia Hotz in 1957.
The summer job lasted 23 years.
She became the top deputy in the office, and when Hotz retired in 1974, Hotz backed Ms. Bowles to run as her replacement.
But the old guard, male-dominated members of the Democratic Central Committee had other ideas and their own candidate.
Ms. Bowles ran anyway and organized other women to campaign for her. She led the party in votes, winning the clerks election and holding the job until 1994.
It was the beginning of the end of the old boy machine that existed before, said Mark Von Nida, a successor to Ms. Bowles as Madison County clerk.
Ms. Bowles refused to pay money to the Democrats a so-called lug in exchange for the partys endorsement.
In 1982, the county Democratic chairman listed the names of party regulars who had been endorsed, adding: Evelyn Bowles was recommended.
What was the difference between endorsed and recommended? a reporter asked.
The party chairman dodged the question but finally explained with some exasperation: She wont pay the lug but shes going to win anyway.
He was right on both counts.
The clerk manages elections, keeps the countys vital records, and supervises what was then 25 employees.
Ms. Bowles developed a reputation for running a nonpartisan, no-nonsense office.
William R. Haine, then the Madison County states attorney, described Ms. Bowles as scrupulously honest and said her integrity was unquestioned.
Shes an argument against term limits, Haine added, because this lady served the people of the county with distinction.
After her first election, Ms. Bowles never had another primary opponent. She also never had a Republican opponent. She was so popular, nobody ran against her.
After five terms and 20 years as county clerk, Ms. Bowles announced she was retiring with no regrets. At 72, she said, she planned to take a little time for Evelyn.
That didnt last long. In 1993, she announced that she would run for the Illinois Senate with the endorsement of the man she would replace, Sen. Sam M. Vadalabene, who was in failing health.
At first it looked like Ms. Bowles would repeat her primary fight of 1974 and run against another party regular. This time it was a relative unknown who boasted that he was a party man while Ms. Bowles has never given the party a penny ...
Vadalabene died before the election and this time the party leaders united behind Ms. Bowles and appointed her to fill the Senate seat that represented Madison and St. Clair counties.
She was re-elected twice.
She said her greatest pride came in sponsoring legislation that made Illinois the first state to regulate the reuse of surgical devices designed for one-time only use.
Ms. Bowles met with her friend Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who got the federal General Accounting Office to investigate. The GAO found that while there was little evidence of harm, oversight was needed. In 2000, the Food and Drug Administration began enforcing more rigorous guidelines for hospitals and third-party reprocessors.
Ms. Bowles supporters said her popularity could have swept her into Congress. She was frequently mentioned as a possible successor to Rep. Mel Price, D-East St. Louis, who died in 1988. But Ms. Bowles never challenged Jerry Costello, the St. Clair County Board chairman who took over Prices seat.
Ms. Bowles retired in 2002. Under state law, she could have kept her leftover campaign funds.
Instead, she established a scholarship for future public servants at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
I cant think of anything that would mean more to me than encouraging others to take an active role in public service, the electoral process and government, she said.
Visitation is set from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday at Weber and Rodney Funeral Home in Edwardsville. A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10:30 a.m. Thursday at St. Marys Catholic Church in Edwardsville.
The rallying cry of Break up the big banks! has been heard in presidential campaigns, the halls of Congress, and in some Federal Reserve Bank leadership offices. It has a great deal of persuasive power, yet, as public policy, its the wrong approach.
St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard last month said he favors breaking up big banks in order to foster innovation. His fellow Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari, head of the Minneapolis bank, also supports this concept.
As a federal regulator, I want to share why I believe breaking up the big banks is the wrong solution.
I am no apologist for the nations largest banks far from it. As the longest-serving voting member of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, I have worked to clean up the mess caused by inappropriate risk-taking in the frenzied run-up to the financial crisis. The councils job is to identify risks and respond to threats to our nations financial system. I have seen how fiercely the big banks resist many reforms designed to prevent economic havoc.
In fact, the National Credit Union Administration, which I chair, was the first financial institutions regulator to sue the firms whose actions contributed to the Great Recession. NCUA has even been called the John Wayne of Washington financial regulators and unusually tough on Wall Street firms that sold faulty mortgage-backed securities to credit unions. To date, weve recovered $2.5 billion, and we have more than a dozen additional lawsuits pending against banks headquartered in the U.S. and overseas.
But breaking up the big banks, especially in our current economic climate, is not the right answer. Doing so risks undoing the valuable progress that the Financial Stability Oversight Council and federal regulators have made and will continue to make.
The Dodd-Frank Act gave regulators new powers to monitor the health of financial institutions, particularly those deemed systemically important. To reduce threats to our financial system and protect taxpayers, the law raised capital requirements for big banks, restricted certain high-risk practices, and created a mechanism to unwind failing institutions in an orderly way.
Bank size didnt cause the financial crisis. Poor underwriting, coupled with mortgage securitization and risky speculation in the shadow banking sector, were the biggest factors. Dodd-Frank requires big banks to operate under more rigorous regulatory and supervisory standards. Systemically important financial institutions also now are subject to greater scrutiny. These reforms have strengthened the financial system.
Its hard to see how arbitrarily capping banks size would further reduce risks. Focusing attention on size alone might even introduce new risks, creating instability within the financial system the very problem that Congress designed Dodd-Frank to prevent. Instead of many new small institutions, wed be more likely to get a handful of new firms lurking just below the asset cap. As they got closer to the arbitrary cap, these firms would likely develop strategies to circumvent the size limit in substance while adhering to it in form. If that happens, well end up with a system that has more risks and less transparency.
Any credible plan needs to fully address critical and practical questions about how to break up big banks. How would their trillions of dollars in assets, debts, and equity be divided? What effect would disruptions of this magnitude have on the tens of millions of consumers and businesses forced into new financial institutions? After all, some of the big banks became big precisely because consumers and businesses chose to do business with them.
Additionally, in the current environment, enforcing arbitrary size limits would likely decrease the availability of credit. It would slow or even end the ongoing economic expansion.
Today, big banks are preparing living wills. Regulators are working on joint rules to prevent excessive compensation that could lead to material losses. The Fed is considering ways to increase the capital cushions of failing banks. These efforts dont require breaking up big banks. They only require completing what weve already begun.
Finally, as a failsafe, Dodd-Frank already gives regulators the power to force big banks and other systemically important institutions to divest assets if they pose a grave threat to the financial stability of the United States. Used appropriately, this regulatory tool is more effective than imposing an arbitrary cap on bank size.
Lets continue our regulatory progress. Lets ensure that all Americans have access to safe, secure financial services. Lets guarantee that taxpayers never again have to bail out our banking system. Reform, not revolution, is what gets us there safely.
Debbie Matz is board chairman of the National Credit Union Administration and has served on the Financial Stability Oversight Council since its inception.
If the execution is carried out, it too will leave a grieving family, in addition to having lost a little boy who might have survived if he could have gotten to the hospital in time.
Courtesy PaulinaSplechta.com(BOCA RATON, Fla.) -- A Florida woman hired a professional photographer to capture the birth of her third child. What she didn't expect to get on film was when her newborn daughter was born in the hospital parking lot.
Paula D'Amore, who describes herself as "Type A," told ABC News that after having almost no photographic record of her first two childrens births, she decided if she ever got pregnant again, she'd hire a photographer to capture the moments she's likely to forget.
"With my first son I got no pictures whatsoever," she recalled. "And with my second son, I had hired a doula and she just grabbed my camera and took pictures, but it was low lighting and low quality ... that's why I knew I needed someone there documenting the whole thing and I wanted it to be documented professionally."
D'Amore, 30, hired birth photographer, Paulina Splechta. The mother paid $1,000 to receive between 100 and 150 professional pictures. She said the investment was well worth it.
"It's almost like an out of body experience because I'm going through all of this and now I'm able to look back at the photos [and say], 'Wow this just happened,'" she said.
D'Amore has plenty to look at since her baby was born Friday in the parking lot of Boca Raton Regional Hospital.
This being her third child, D'Amore said she didn't want to rush to the hospital.
"With this one I knew my body more," the Green Acres, Florida, woman said. "I didn't want to arrive to the hospital and be there for hours, so I [told my doula Lindsay Ripley,] 'I would love to labor at home for as long as possible.'"
After taking a bath to ease her contractions, which were now three to five minutes apart, and stare at the birth affirmations she had posted around the tub for her birthing photo shoot, D'Amore said she told her husband Joseph it was time to head to the hospital with Ripley. Splechta followed right behind them in her own car, camera in hand.
"Two miles down the road, I was like, 'Guys I have the urge to push,'" she recalled. "It just takes over your body. It's not like you can control it."
The midwife D'Amore had also hired, Christine Hackshaw, met them in the parking lot of the hospital to help deliver her baby girl.
Splechta, who had been driving behind D'Amore in a separate vehicle, arrived just in time to capture the baby's birth. The photographer, who has been capturing births for two years, said it was "definitely not easy."
"You have to be on your toes because there's only one chance to get that particular shot and if you don't get that shot there's no second chance at all," Splechta told ABC News.
D'Amore doesn't regret hiring a photographer to help capture her birth.
"It's incredible how everything went down even down to the second," D'Amore said. "I couldn't have picked a better team. I always said to them, 'You're my dream team.'"
Daniella D'Amore was born, weighing 8 pound and six ounces and more than 20 inches long.
Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
DUBAI, UAE, April 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
Unisono, one of the leading strategic creative agencies in the Middle East, has been inaugurated into the REBRAND 100 Hall of Fame, making it the first Middle Eastern agency to be recognised and only one of 25 globally.
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160410/353415 )
The inauguration is an immense achievement for any branding agency, underscoring the firm's achievements and awards over the last 5 years. Unisono won REBRAND 100 7 times in this period for household brand names such as GFH, BFC, Cityscape, ADIB and Naseej. In the most recent awards, announced last month, the agency picked up two awards for its strategic rebranding of regional financial group GFH and the utility services firm, Enerji.
The Hall of Fame is comprised of just 25 of the most highly awarded branding agencies worldwide, with many leading firms from the US, UK, Canada and Australia listed alongside Unisono.
Commenting on the win Anaezi Modu. CEO of REBRAND 100 stated that "to get into the Hall of Fame is a remarkable achievement, to do it within 5 years is truly amazing."
Liam Farrell, Unisono's Executive Creative Director commented, "this is a brilliant achievement for the agency and has projected Bahrain as a strong player in the international branding arena," adding "We are delighted that work done by regional teams, for regional clients has been acknowledged and consistently awarded for its excellence by globally-recognized experts."
The inauguration into the REBRAND 100 Hall of Fame is just one of over 16 accolades won by the firm in 2015 alone. In the past year, the agency won the coveted Jury's Selection as the Best Overall Brand Identity at the 2015 Transform Awards for its work rebranding Batelco. The firm also picked up 3 Golds, to add to its collection of awards and its work has been featured in numerous books including Design & Design Annuals and Logo Talk3.
About Unisono
Founded by partners Amy Morgan and Liam Farrell in 2006, Unisono is the only Middle Eastern agency to be initiated into the global REBRAND 100 Hall of Fame - an award that recognises the top 25 branding agencies globally. Widely renowned for strategic creativity, Unisono works with global and Middle Eastern brands. The agency has won over 33 major international awards in the last ten years including 7 REBRAND Awards and 18 Transform Awards for strategy and creativity. Unisono works on branding, advertising, design and digital projects with clients across all business sectors. An independent agency, Unisono is headquartered in Bahrain with offices in Dubai.
Unisono. Believe in Brilliance.
http://www.unisonoagency.com
http://www.facebook.com/unisonoagency
Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/company/unisono_2
SOURCE Unisono, Bahrain
The coffin of Italian student Giulio Regeni is carried during his funeral in Fiumicello, northern Italy, February 12, 2016. REUTERS/Stringer
By Amina Ismail and Haitham Ahmed
CAIRO (Reuters) - Tension between Egypt and Italy stems from Cairo's refusal to hand over extensive phone records as part of an investigation into the killing of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni, a senior Egyptian prosecutor said on Saturday.
Italy recalled its ambassador to Egypt for consultations on Friday, saying Egyptian investigators on a visit to Rome had failed to provide the evidence needed to resolve the case of Regeni, whose body was found dumped in a roadside ditch nine days after he disappeared in the center of Cairo.
A day after returning from Rome, Egypt's assistant public prosecutor Mustafa Suleiman said Egypt had complied with 98 percent of Italy's requests.
Suleiman said the findings of the Italian and Egyptian autopsies were almost identical but that Egypt would not share the phone records sought by Italian investigators.
He said Italy had requested all records from the area where Regeni lived, where he disappeared and where he was found, which could amount to nearly a million calls.
"This demand goes against the constitution and the law and is a crime for anyone who does it," Suleiman told a news conference in Cairo. "We told them that the public prosecution is doing this itself (looking at phone records) and will give you the results."
Suleiman said the Egyptian investigators had also given the Italians the surveillance camera they had asked for but that the relevant footage had automatically deleted.
Regeni, a 28-year-old PhD student who was researching the Egyptian labor movement, disappeared on Jan. 25, the anniversary of the start of 2011 uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule. His body was discovered on Feb. 3 and Egyptian investigators found signs of extensive torture.
Human rights groups say the wounds bear the hallmarks of Egypt's security agencies and point to the scores of Egyptians who have disappeared over the past year. Egyptian officials have repeatedly denied involvement in his death but have struggled to offer an explanation to satisfy Italy.
Italian officials have ridiculed different explanations put forward by Egyptian investigators.
Egypt has also asked Italy to explain what happened to Egyptian Adel Moawad, who went missing in the European country last year. Suleiman said Italy handed over a file on Moawad, though his fate remained a mystery.
Italy's decision to escalate the diplomatic dispute could dent Italian efforts to become Egypt's key European partner in fighting terrorism and people-smuggling.
Italy also has significant economic interests in Egypt, including the giant offshore Zohr gas field, which is being developed by Italy's state energy producer Eni.
Suleiman played down the diplomatic tensions, saying his team returned a day early to avoid a strike at Rome airport.
However, in a statement carried by state news agency MENA later spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri had expressed unease "toward the political direction that is beginning to be taken regarding this file".
(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti; Writing by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Alison Williams and Helen Popper)
A woman holds a flag showing a portrait of Che Guevara as she attends a demonstration against the French labour law proposal in Nice, France, April 9, 2016. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard
PARIS (Reuters) - Demonstrations around France against a draft labor reform law turned violent on Saturday, with at least seven police officers injured and 17 people arrested in Paris and Rennes, which saw the worst clashes.
Following changes to soften the bill, the broad-based protest movement has waned from its March 31 peak, when turnout estimates ranged between 390,000 and 1.2 million, suggesting President Francois Hollande may be able to ride out the storm.
Nonetheles, some 120,000 took part in Saturday's sixth day of protests around the country, according to the Interior Ministry.
Police clashed with groups of masked militants hurling projectiles in Paris as well as in Rennes and Nantes.
Paris police chief Michel Cadot said his officers had encountered "300-400 extremists" at the head of the union-organized protest in the capital.
The draft labor law seeks to introduce more working time flexibility and rein in labor tribunal challenges and payouts.
After some watering down in a parliamentary committee, Prime Minister Manuel Valls is expected to propose limited further adjustments on Monday following a meeting with student leaders at his Matignon office.
The public protests have posed an additional headache for Hollande, whose popularity ratings were already the lowest of any serving president in modern French history.
Dissent amid his governing Socialists last week forced Hollande to scrap plans to strip French citizenship from those convicted on terrorism charges, a climbdown from his tough stance in the wake of November's attacks.
And in a further challenge to his reelection chances for 2017, the party's national council announced on Saturday that it would back a primary contest to select a single presidential candidate for the broader French left - a prospect that is likely to embolden potential Socialist challengers.
The capital also saw the 10th outing for nocturnal protesters from the "Nuit Debout" movement ("Up all Night"). It began on the margins of the March 31 demonstrations and has since gathered every evening on Place de la Republique, spawning its own online radio station and field kitchens.
(Reporting by Pierre-Henri Allain and Yves Clarisse; Writing by Laurence Frost; Editing by Toby Chopra)
Ireland's Prime Minister Enda Kenny looks on during the commemoration of the 100 year anniversary of the Irish Easter Rising in Dublin, Ireland, March 27, 2016. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's two largest political parties have agreed to meet early next week for talks on how one might support the other to form a minority government and avoid a second general election.
The smaller of the two, Fianna Fail, on Thursday rejected an offer from the Fine Gael party of acting prime minister Enda Kenny for a grand coalition between the historical center-right rivals.
That leaves a minority government, in which one party abstains in key parliamentary votes to allow the other party to govern, as the only realistic way to avoid a repeat of the Feb. 26 general election.
But both sides say the details of any such agreement would be crucial in determining its viability.
The two parties on Saturday published a statement saying the talks would "discuss how a viable minority government would work."
Parliament is due to sit on Thursday to attempt for the third time to elect a new prime minister.
Kenny's Fine Gael would be the heavy favorite to lead a minority government as it has 50 seats to Fianna Fail's 43 in the 158-seat chamber. But both would need the support of independent deputies and Fianna Fail could theoretically edge ahead if it secures enough of them.
(Reporting by Conor Humphries; Editing by Toby Chopra)
Swiss Finance Minister Ueli Maurer speaks to media after the weekly meeting of the Federal Council in Bern, Switzerland February 17, 2016. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich
ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland's finance minister has defended the use of offshore companies by the world's wealthy to cut their tax bills, now under scrutiny after publication of the "Panama Papers".
"You have to create these opportunities," Finance Minister Ueli Maurer, from the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP), told Swiss newspaper Blick in an interview published on Friday.
"Rich people pay a lot more tax than me," said Maurer. "I am not rich - and without the rich I would have to pay more tax."
Four decades of documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which specializes in setting up offshore companies and has offices in Zurich and Geneva, showed widespread use of those instruments by global banks and triggered investigations around the world.
Maurer's comments were not echoed by the head of Switzerland's financial watchdog Mark Branson on Thursday. He said the country's banks must clamp down on money laundering in the wake of the Panama Papers.
The Geneva prosecutor has also opened a criminal inquiry in connection with the millions of documents leaked to the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung. They then became part of a broader investigation coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Switzerland is the world's biggest international wealth management center with around $2.5 trillion in assets and has taken on more wealth of late from emerging markets, from which it is harder determine the origin of assets, Branson said.
(Reporting by Joshua Franklin Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
Three in every four adults who die by suicide are male. When it comes to people aged 19 or younger, four in every 10 suicides are female.
Life insurers are wary of being used by a person considering suicide to leave a legacy for their loved ones in the form of a life insurance payout.
As a result, most insurers won't pay out for deaths caused by self-harm in the 13 months after the policy is issued.
Similarly, if someone increases their cover and then kills themselves, the insurer may pay out the amount the person was originally covered for, but not the increase.
ADRIAN HILLMAN/123RF There were 12.27 suicides per 100,000 in the 12 months to the end of June 2015.
But there's a second, less commonly recognised side to insurance and suicide: the large number of people who try to kill themselves, but survive the attempt, and later go on to take out insurance.
READ MORE: Let's talk about suicide
Statistically, New Zealand's overall suicide rate is in the middle of the OECD pack, but it is high among younger people, and so is the attempted suicide rate.
Ministry of Health figures show in 2012, 71 people in every 100,000 were hospitalised for self-harm, compared to 12.3 people per 100,000 who killed themselves.
When people take out insurance, failing to reveal past suicide attempts is likely to lead to insurers refusing to pay claims should the policyholder die, or fall sick.
Some cases through the years have found their way before the Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman.
NON-DISCLOSURE OF SUICIDE ATTEMPTS
2013: In 2011 a woman took out life and mortgage protection insurance. She died of natural causes in 2013. The insurer found she had not disclosed an attempted suicide by overdose of prescription pills in 2010.
The insurer told the Ombudsman it would have charged triple the premium had it known the woman's full medical history.
Despite that, the insurer made a voluntary payment of just over $50,000 to her estate. It would have been in its rights to pay nothing.
2013: In January 2012 a woman took out trauma insurance, but failed to tell the insurer about an attempted suicide. When she made a claim for cancer in 2013, it was declined.
The ombudsman found the insurer had a legal right to do so.
CLAIMS AFTER SUICIDE
2009: It is not always clear if someone has deliberately killed themselves, which is why insurers' policy wordings exclude death caused by self-inflicted injury in the first 13 months of a policy.
That means that if a person dies from something like a drugs overdose, where it is not clear if they intended to kill themselves, the insurer can decline a claim.
In one case a man took out life insurance in March 2009, and died of self-inflicted morphine intoxication in December the same year. The dead man's estate did not believe he intended to kill himself, but the wording of the policy meant the insurer did not have to prove he did, just that he died as a result of self-inflicted injury.
2004: A couple cancelled their life insurance with an insurer, and less than a week later, took out new policies with the same insurer. The insurance adviser knew of this plan, but failed to tell the insurer it was "replacement" business, on which the 13-week suicide exclusion should have been waved.
When one of the couple committed suicide, the insurer declined the claim. The ombudsman ruled it had to pay up.
2003: When a man died after swallowing medication, his insurer refused to pay a life insurance claim relying on policy wording which said no suicide would be covered in the first 13 months of the policy, whether the man was sane or insane.
The coroner was unable to determine whether the man had intended to kill himself, or had even realised that taking the medication would kill him. Without proof of intention, the insurer had to pay the claim.
2004: The husband of a woman who killed herself found her insurer refusing to pay the claim because she had not disclosed she had once taken the antidepressant Prozac.
It was a material non-disclosure, and the insurer was within its rights not to pay, even though the 13-week suicide exclusion period had passed.
CLAIMS AFTER A SUICIDE ATTEMPT
2010: A woman driving her car collided with a power pole. Her insurer believed it to be a suicide attempt, and not an accident, and so declined her claim.
A psychiatrist found the woman was incapable of forming an intent to take her own life as she was suffering from a depressive illness with some psychotic features.
The ombudsman found the woman could not therefore have committed a "reckless" act, as the insurer alleged, which meant it had to pay the claim.
2008: In another case a woman who crashed on a motorway the same day as the bank she worked for discovered she was stealing from customer accounts, had her car insurance claim turned down by an insurer, suspecting she had intended to kill herself. It said her driving was "reckless, grossly careless, or grossly negligent". The ombudsman's investigation found expert evidence did not indicate the woman perceived the risk of her actions, and the insurer had to pay up.
Where to get help:
* Lifeline: 0800 543 354 - Provides 24 hour telephone counselling
* Youthline: 0800 376 633 or free text 234 - Provides 24 hour telephone and text counselling services for young people
* Samaritans: 0800 726 666 - Provides 24 hour telephone counselling.
* Tautoko: 0508 828 865 - provides support, information and resources to people at risk of suicide, and their family, whanau and friends.
* Whatsup: 0800 942 8787 (noon to midnight)
* Kidsline: 0800 543 754 (4pm - 6pm weekdays)
If it is an emergency or you feel you or someone you know is at risk, please call 111
For information about suicide prevention, see http://www.spinz.org.nz.
Porirua Mayor Nick Leggett explains some of his ideas for running Wellington.
The latest bidder for the Wellington mayoral chains says the capital is "stalled at the lights", and he will bring new leadership and energy to the role.
Porirua Mayor Nick Leggett announced his tilt on Sunday and promised to move to the capital if he was elected.
The 36-year-old's candidacy brings the field for the Wellington mayoralty to six, including incumbent Celia Wade-Brown.
MONIQUE FORD/ FAIRFAX NZ Wellington mayoral candidate and current Porirua Mayor Nick Leggett acknowledges his outsider status, but says the city is in need of fresh blood.
Some of his rivals for the mayoral chains have been quick to point out the "unusual" nature of standing for election in a city in which he does not live, and to question his record in Porirua.
READ MORE:
* Garner: On yer bike Celia, the city needs a better mayor
* Porirua mayor considers running in Wellington
* Wellington and Porirua councils in merger talks
* Wellington super-city scrapped
Leggett will stand as an independent after resigning from the Labour Party on Friday, in part because Labour already has a preferred candidate in the Wellington mayoral race, in Justin Lester.
He said in his announcement: "Wellington is a great city that deserves great leadership, but it's been stalled at the lights in recent years."
A supporter of a super-city, he said a possible merger between Wellington and Porirua councils might be discussed if he was elected, although: "politicians should step aside and let the community decide in the end".
He said he had no trinkets to dangle in front of voters, and instead, he planned spending on a city ready to withstand a major disaster, rather than investing in "fluffy" pet projects.
"What we know is if there's a catastrophic earthquake in Wellington, the estimate is that there's 100 days to get water to the southern and eastern suburbs and 90 days to the CBD."
"A catastrophic earthquake leaves us at risk ... we need to know really clearly whether the infrastructure is in place and how long it is going to take for reconnection of basic water supply, and wastewater as well. I don't think those issues are front and centre enough."
He vowed that, under his leadership, he would consider the outsourcing of business investment decisions, following the failure of council-sponsored companies such as CallActive.
"My experience is politicians are not experts in picking winners for business development and economic development, so I'd be looking to ... start handing that over to the Regional Economic Development Agency."
Lester said Leggett's candidacy was "unusual". "I live and work in Wellington. We have chosen to raise our family here. Now there is a vacancy in Porirua, would I go and run in Porirua?
"Of course not. It's not where I live and work, it's not where I have a community of interest."
Wade-Brown said Leggett had not solved all of Porirua's problems, and his comments on Wellington "stalling" were wrong.
She compared them with Prime Minister John Key's remarks about Wellington dying. "We have absolutely proved the city is thriving, not dying. Maybe Nick needs to look at some of the statistics."
Leggett said the council under Wade-Brown's leadership was losing touch, exemplified in the Island Bay cycleway debacle, and its inability to earn Government trust in the airport runway extension project.
Councillor Jo Coughlan, another mayoral candidate, said: "Any candidate who supports my commitment as mayor to double-tunnel the Mt Victoria and Terrace tunnels, along with other infrastructure and ambitious policies to make Wellington better, could be a useful councillor."
WELLINGTON'S MAYORALTY RACE:
April 2015: Lambton ward councillor Nicola Young announces her tilt, with Southern ward councillor Paul Eagle as her deputy.
December 2015: Deputy mayor and Northern ward councillor Justin Lester announces he will be standing.
February 2016: Mayor Celia Wade-Brown confirms she is standing again.
March 2016: Lester and Eagle announce their joint ticket run as mayor and deputy.
April 2016: Jo Coughlan announces she too will contest the mayoralty.
April 2016: Nick Leggett confirms he is running.
April 2016: Local economist, policy adviser and writer Keith Johnson announces he will run too.
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A Nelson woman who was surprised to find insects come out of her hot water tap says she wants others to know about the problem as it could happen to them.
When Olga Reid noticed a collection of bug parts come out with her hot water, her first thought was that there were cluster flies coming out of the tap.
"I noticed heads, legs, bits and pieces, the sink water here came out like a stew and there was bugs all around the place," Reid said.
Olga Reid Part of an insect, identified as a wool carder bee, that came out of the hot water tap in Olga Reid's house.
"I didn't want them in there so I wanted to set out to find out how to get rid of them."
READ MORE:
* Thousands of cockroaches invade Auckland street
* Wellington bee swarm finds new home
* Invading ants out of control, council gives up
The Stoke resident had trouble getting the insects identified, she contacted both the Nelson City Council and the Public Health Service to get to the bottom of where they had come from.
"I wasn't happy to find out that nobody knew about them," she said.
Photos of the insects were send to entomologist Richard Toft, who identified them as wool carder bees.
The bees, which look like a cross between a honey bee and a wasp first arrived in the country 10 years ago and Toft said Nelson was one of the first places they were discovered.
Toft said they liked to nest in crevices which would explain how they ended up getting into plumbing.
"The funny thing was other people were telling me about their showers being blocked and I was trying to find out why," Reid said. "People do need to know about them and what to do."
Reid drained her hot water cylinder with the help of a neighbour and called a plumber who was able to fix the problem by putting a gauze over the vent pipe.
Trade Central plumber Glen Penson who responded to Reid's call, said he had one callout or so a month where bugs were blocking the shower mixer or taps.
"Some people get plagued by it and some don't," he said. "It definitely keeps plumbers busy that is for sure."
It was a problem for those that had low pressure, open-vented hot water systems, which he estimated was about 60 per cent of homes in Nelson, although that number was diminishing as new home builds used un-vented, mains pressure systems.
"It is a header tank problem really, if you have a header tank in your house they will find a way to get in there and die."
The presence of insects was the first thing he looked for when people had a dripping shower head or no hot water coming out of their tap.
He thought the insects entered the overflow from the header tank or got into the hot water cylinder through the release pipe where they then blocked shower heads and hot water taps.
The solution was to put a gauze on the release pipe and a rodent flap on the overflow to prevent anything entering the system.
"It makes it a hell of a lot harder for them to get in there, bugs are pretty persistent, they will find any little gap."
Tim Miller of Tim Miller Plumbing said he first came across the problem around 10 years ago.
He had pulled the black and yellow insects out of shower heads and wondered if they were attracted to the heat in the vent pipes.
"For a while there it was a big problem," he said. "They cause problems in tempering valves and Topliss shower mixers and they get caught up in the internal system."
Miller said it was a strange thing to see.
"It's certainly out there and it didn't use to happen."
Rotorua Airport will see more Air New Zealand planes in the near future as a result of schedule changes by the airline.
An increase in capacity on the Auckland-Rotorua route, and an increase on the Rotorua-Christchurch route, together with improved connectivity between Rotorua and Queenstown, as well as Dunedin and Invercargill are the reason for a seven per cent increase projected for Rotorua.
Social Development Minister Anne Tolley says Cabinet has agreed to major state care reforms and a complete overhaul of Child, Youth and Family to improve the long-term life outcomes for New Zealands most vulnerable population.
She told TVs The Nation recently that "CYFS does not work".
Taurangas second Colour Dash attracted at least 1000 runners and walkers, who had to brave rain, sloppy conditions as well as being peppered with coloured starch and water.
Together they raised $10,750 for Project K and KiwiCan. Event manager Larissa Allen is pleased with the turnout.
Covered in coloured dust for a good cause. Photos: Cameron Avery.
"It was the eighth dash in the country. Weve done it in other cities, such as Rotorua, Hamilton and Auckland. Considering the fact that it rained for the first two to three hours, the turnout was amazing," she says.
She reckons everyone had a great time for a good cause and people of all ages had a go at the 3 or 6 km run/walk around Waipuna Park.
The event will soon be reviewed and during that time those involved will decide where to take it next. It may one day return to Tauranga, the city that hosted it first, at least in New Zealand.
Russ Lemmon
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By Russ Lemmon
When I grow up, I want to do what Marilyn Coughlin did.
Thanks to her, I'm going to put self-publishing a book on my "bucket list."
That's what she did at age 75.
Making money wasn't the motivation for publishing "India: Beyond Dirt, Dust and Dung." I mean, you can count the number of copies she had printed on two hands.
"Not one iota," she said when asked about the money. "Never gave it a thought. I just wanted to document my achievements. Bragging rights, I guess."
Coughlin, who moved to Indian River County in 2000, has traveled extensively. In addition to multiple trips to India, she lived in China and taught English.
Her 88-page book is an easy read, with a mix of travel essays and photos. There's even some poetry.
I must say, I never expected a self-published book to be such high quality from a "looks" standpoint. It could easily pass as a travel book from a major publisher.
Coughlin gives credit to Toni Quigley for guiding her through the process. They both live in Summerplace.
Quigley was effectively Coughlin's editor for the six-month project.
"Without Toni, I would not have gotten through this," Coughlin said.
Quigley says she has self-published close to 10 books. Money isn't her motivation either ? all of her books have been gifts for someone.
Their collaboration was that of a teacher and student. They had quite a few obstacles to overcome, but they made it through.
"I have to give Marilyn a lot of credit," Quigley said. "She did try, and she did learn, a whole lot of new things. I think anything you learn as an older person keeps your brain going."
Coughlin found the process to be immensely satisfying.
"Just of the experience of learning how to do it is mind-expanding," she said.
The cost of self-publishing a book was much less than I expected. Coughlin took advantage of a deal being offered and paid $140 for four books ? or $35 apiece. (The regular price, she said, is about $100 per copy.)
The turnaround time was less than two weeks.
Coughlin dedicated the book to her lifelong friend, Diane Alice Corley, who died in 2011 at age 74.
If not for Corley, Coughlin wrote, she never would have overcome her status as a high-school dropout and graduate with a four-year college degree.
When they were 23, Corley asked her: "What will you do when you no longer fit into a skimpy cocktail waitress costume?"
Coughlin became a teacher, worked as an account executive for a Fortune 500 company and owned a bed-and-breakfast in her native Minnesota.
Traveling has been a lifelong passion.
"You know how you buy something and put it on, and it just feels right? That's the way India was for me," she said.
So, what was her reaction when she opened the FedEx package and saw her book for the first time?
"I was very, very pleased," she recalled. "I said, 'Oh, my gosh. I pulled it off.'
"I can validate 75 years of living. I won't make a dime, but I wanted my family to have a remembrance."
As Coughlin proved, self-publishing a book is within your reach. Some possibilities include travel books, where you can share your best photos, or a book of family history.
Some advice from Quigley:
"The first thing I would tell them is, it's going to be overwhelming, but don't be afraid."
If you have an interest in doing a book on your family history, she suggests being organized.
You can't blame Coughlin for beaming with pride over her accomplishment. (If you want to purchase a copy of her book, search for it on the website mypublisher.com.)She used four words to describe her emotions.
"Elation. Relief. Pride. Thankfulness."
That latter was a nod to Toni Quigley.
Congratulations, Marilyn. A job well done.
Russ Lemmon is a columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers. This column reflects his opinion. Contact him at 772-978-2205 or russ.lemmon@scripps.com.
By Janet Begley, Special to Treasure Coast Newspapers
MELBOURNE Even though Indian River County is considered to be solidly Republican, no Indian River representatives from Congressional District 8 were chosen as delegates to the upcoming Republican National Convention set for July 18-21 in Cleveland.
District 8 includes Indian River and Brevard counties and a small part of Orange County.
GOP leaders Saturday chose Barbara Davis and Carlie Rogers, both from Brevard County's Republican Executive Committee, and Lou Oliver, from Orange County's Republican Executive Committee, as their choices to mark their first three ballots for Florida's primary winner, Donald Trump.
In the primary, Trump received 45.7 percent of the vote, followed by Marco Rubio, who received 27 percent. Ted Cruz earned 17.1 percent while John Kasich received 6.8 percent.
All three delegates indicated they would follow state party rules that require them to vote for the March 15 primary winner on the first three ballots. After that, they're free to vote as they choose.
Indian River County residents Carole Jean Jordan, who headed the Florida Republican Party from 2003 to 2007, and Joseph Semprevivo, the national field director for the Ted Cruz campaign, will both serve as alternates to the Republican convention, along with Brevard County Republican vice chairman Rick Lacey. Alternates only cast a ballot if a regular delegate is unable to vote.
"I'm disappointed that the county with the highest percentage of Republican elected officials doesn't have a delegate representing them," said Jordan. "But I am happy to attend as an alternate. Delegate, alternate or guest, we're all going to do what's right for the good of the party."
Though Semprevivo supports Cruz, he said he would vote for Trump on the first three ballots. He said Cruz has told supporters who are selected as delegates they need to stick with the party rules.
"It's fantastic to see we have all come together for the process," said Semprevivo. "But we want to win in November. That's what really matters. "
Statewide, 81 delegates will be chosen by local party officials. An additional 15 at-large delegates will be selected by the Republican Party of Florida's executive board at its upcoming meeting in Tampa.
State party Chairman Blaise Ingoglia and the state's two Republican National Committee members round out the delegate count at 99.
Italy has recalled its ambassador to Egypt after two days of inconclusive talks between Egyptian and Italian investigators on the subject of the murdered Girton student Giulio Regeni.
The Italian Foreign Ministry stated that it had recalled Ambassador Maurizio Massari as an urgent evaluation is needed in order to discover how best to ascertain the truth about the barbaric murder of Giulio Regeni.
The Ministrys statement follows two days of talks in Rome where Senior Egyptian Investigators who were reportedly accompanied by 2000 pages of evidence briefed their Italian counterparts on the investigation. At the end of the second day of talks, Italian investigators dismissed the Egyptian evidence as "insufficient".
The news was also publicised on Twitter by Italys prime minister, Matteo Renzi, accompanied by the hashtag #veritapergiulioregeni which translates as truth for Giulio Regeni.
The body of Regeni, a PhD student researching labour union movements in Egypt, was found 10 days after his initial disappearance on the 25 January 2016 exhibiting signs of brutal torture. Reports in March that Egyptian authorities had found and killed a criminal gang responsible for Regenis death were met with scepticism in Italy. The Ministrys latest statement added that the chief Italian prosecutor reiterated his conviction that there are no elements to directly directly link the gang to the torture and death of Giulio Regeni.
The talks in Rome come after strong criticism of the Egyptian investigation into Regenis death so far. On Tuesday the Italian foreign minister, Paolo Gentiloni warned Cairo against presenting distorted or convenient truths at this weeks talks and promised to take proportional action if the meetings in Rome did not prompt a change in gear.
Italian officials have since stated that the Egyptian dossier presented in Rome did not include any new information, such as Regeni's mobile phone records or CCTV footage of the area in Cairo where he went missing. Egyptian investigators stood by recent claims that a criminal gang were responsible for Regenis murder.
The high-profile case has sparked outrage internationally, with the Italian branch of Amnesty International calling for the truth about Giulio Regeni, several leading politicians calling for the truth of Regenis death to be told, and wide spread speculation that Egyptian security forces played a part in the death of Regeni due to the nature of his PHD research.
A petition stating that "The UK government has a duty to ensure that a credible investigation of this extrajudicial killing is carried out" has so far reached 9,800 signatures.
These most recent developments appear to mark the height of the increased diplomatic tensions between two nations so far. Sources in the Egyptian ministry are reportedly keen to calm the situation, expressing fears that the Italian decision to recall the ambassador could impact trade between the two nations who were previously strong allies.
The marketing efforts in retail stores have shifted to the online world as technology offers more immediate and efficient modes of buying products.
Amazon recently expanded its Prime Now services across 11 new metro areas which now increase their footing in 27 major areas that span across 1,000 cities. Their services now deliver to the greater New York City including North and Central New Jersey, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Dallas-Fort Worth, the San Francisco Bay area including Oakland and San Jose, the Tampa Bay area, Seattle-Tacoma, Washington, D.C., and now Milwaukee, Charlotte, Richmond, Fresno, Louisville, Nashville, Stockton, Cincinnati, Sacramento, Tucson and Raleigh.
This is part of their annual membership program that costs $99 annually; the other services offered are "Prime Now," for smartphone deals, and "Free Two-Day" delivery service that is offered to the entire continental U.S. To avail of the free delivery charge, premium members have to order above $35 or else pay a $5.99 same-day delivery charge. Non-Prime members, on the other hand, pay $8.99 per order and $0.99 per item.
Other retail stores such as Target and Walmart have yet to follow in Amazon's steps since making same-day delivery offers is ridiculously tricky to accomplish outside of large cities. These so-called "brick and mortar stores" have to contend with the online capabilities that Amazon offers to its customers.
Target offers a "Rush Delivery" system that services select areas of Boston, MA; Miami, FL; and Minneapolis, MN. Consumers can avail free one-day shipping delivery if they shop with Target's Credit, Debit or Master Card or spend more than $25 using other payment methods. Orders placed by 1:30 p.m. from Monday to Saturday will be delivered on the same day while orders placed after 1:30 p.m. will be delivered the following day. "Rush Delivery" orders can be received within 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Walmart allegedly tested its own delivery system called "ShippingPass" that would offer three-day deliveries at no minimum costs which could've rivaled Amazon's Prime. The free shipping offer with no additional costs also includes other items that weren't tagged for three-day deliveries and would instead arrive within four to six days. The membership fee is marked at $50 per year once the feature is released for pilot testing.
Currently, Walmart offers "same-day curbside pickup." Consumers can buy from Walmart's online website and pick it up at a pre-designated time set by the buyer with no added charge. This is the company's solution in addressing time management for consumers that may not be able to shop within store hours to avail their store's "everyday low price."
Photo: Fumiaki Yoshimatsu | Flickr
2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
NASA's asteroid-hunting spacecraft on Tuesday released a treasure trove of survey data, revealing hundreds of Near-Earth objects (NEOs) of which 72 are newly detected and eight are classified as potentially-hazardous.
The space agency said eight of the 72 NEOs detected in recent years were classified as potentially hazardous asteroids (PHA) based on their size and how close their orbits approached our planet.
Since December 2013, the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Survey Explorer (Neowise) mission has identified 439 NEOs asteroids or comets that at some point orbited the Sun and became close to the Earth.
With the release of this fresh batch of data, Neowise has completed another milestone in its mission to detect, track and classify the comets and asteroids that approach the planet.
Incidentally, an asteroid is considered an NEO when its distance from the Sun during its closest approach is less than 1.3 times the average Sun-Earth distance, experts said.
Scientists also use Neowise data to better understand the origins of these space objects, which are possibly either from the different parts of the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars or the icier comet populations.
History of Neowise
First launched in December 2009, Neowise was originally just called Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). It was placed in hibernation in 2011 after its main mission was done.
In September 2013, WISE was reactivated into Neowise and given a new mission: to distinguish populations of potentially-dangerous NEOs.
Neowise principal investigator Amy Mainzer said the spacecraft discovers large and dark NEOs, helping scientists by complementing the network of ground-based telescopes that operate at visible-light wavelengths.
"On average, these objects are many hundreds of meters across," said Mainzer.
Will NEOs Hit Earth?
NASA scientists said no NEOs are likely to hit the planet anytime soon.
Still, space rocks can remain undetected, such as the Chelyabinsk meteor that streaked across Russian skies on Feb. 15, 2013.
The meteor exploded, shattering glass windows and injuring more than 1,100 residents. Experts say this meteor was the result of a collision between two astronomical bodies.
What's more, fragments of the meteor revealed that the collision did not happen days or months before it hit Earth, but about 290 million years ago.
Meanwhile, NASA unveiled an asteroid detection program in early January which would help defend the planet in case any dangerous asteroids are lurking around Earth.
2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Researchers have been trying to find a way to mimic the regenerative abilities that fish, lizards, mice and few other creatures have. It came to the point that it even inspired one of Marvel superheroes' villains, Genetic Biologist Curt Connors, who mutated into The Lizard when his attempt to regrow his arm like the reptile went horribly wrong.
In a Duke University School of Medicine study titled "Modulation of tissue repair by regeneration enhancer elements," which was published in Nature on April 6, researchers discovered that the genes that activate regeneration in zebrafish have similar gene counterparts in mammals.
"We want to know how regeneration happens, with the ultimate goal of helping humans realize their full regenerative potential," Dr. Kenneth D. Poss, senior author of the study and professor of cell biology at Duke, said.
Instead of focusing on the actual cell and tissue regeneration, however, the research team focused on discovering "tissue regeneration enhancer elements" or TREEs, or specific genes that act as a switch that would signal when a tissue needs repair, when a tissue is being repaired and when a tissue completes repair.
Of course, the task is hardly ever easy but this is where the zebrafish comes in. The lead study author, Postdoctoral fellow Dr. Junsu Kang, monitored zebrafish with damaged fins or hearts and he observed that a gene called "leptin b" was "turned on," as opposed to the fishes in full health.
Next, Dr. Kang painstakingly examined the 150,000 base pairs of genes around leptin b and identified a TREE some 7,000 base pairs away. He also found that the enhancer element can be further divided into two parts: the first part is focused on repairing amputated or damaged fins, and the other on repairing the damaged heart.
As an extension to the study, Dr. Brian L. Black, the research collaborator from the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California in San Francisco, borrowed the genes from the zebrafish to create transgenic mice and he found that the TREEs triggered regeneration in the injured paws or hearts.
With further study on mammals, the study could potentially lead to a way to help humans regenerate amputated limbs.
"Our study points to a way that we could potentially awaken the genes responsible for regeneration that we all carry within us," Dr. Poss said.
Photo: NICHD/ J. Swan | Flickr
2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The latest Samsung flagship smartphones the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge seem to be on everyone's wish list and is turning out to be quite a consumer favorite.
However, those who preordered either of the handsets from Verizon Wireless to take advantage of its promotional offer have some disappointing news headed their way the free Gear S2 smartwatch's shipment has been delayed.
Earlier in February, we reported that Verizon offered freebies for those who preordered the Galaxy S7 edge or the Galaxy S7 from the carrier. Customers could either opt for the Gear VR headset or the Gear S2 smartwatch as part of the limited period promotion which expired on March 18.
As part of the promotion, customers were assured by Verizon that the free Gear S2 or Gear VR would reach within four to six weeks post the verification of the claim.
"Offer claim form and valid purchase receipt must be submitted online by 3/31/16 at 11:59:59 p.m. EST. Subject to verification, customers will receive offer within approximately 4-6 weeks after verification of offer claim," assured Verizon at the time.
However, Verizon is now sending out letters to customers informing that the shipment of the Gear S2 has been delayed.
Verizon cites "high level of interest" in its promotion as the reason for the delay of the smartwatch's shipment. The delivery time frame has now been extended from the initial promised 4 to 6 weeks to May. A possibility exists as the carrier disclaims that the arrival of the Gear S2 could even extend to summer this year.
"Hello [name], Congratulations! Your submission has been approved. We will ship your Samsung Gear S2 to the mailing address you provided when registering for this Offer. Please note that due to the high level of interest in the Verizon Offer promotion, delivery times for Gear S2 are now extending into May and potentially Summer 2016. Once shipped, we will send you an email with your tracking number," reads the letter per reports.
The news will disappoint people who preordered the Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 edge in hopes of gaining a Gear S2 smartwatch for free. Consumers would be hoping that Verizon will take a cue from Samsung and offer aggrieved customers a $100 store credit in lieu of the freebie, which can be used to purchase anything from the carrier's online or physical stores, if they do not want to wait for their Gear S2 to arrive.
Photo: Maurizio Pesce | Flickr
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In Morro Bay, California, a man was rescued on a cliff after his marriage proposal to his girlfriend. The man is still lucky enough to be alive, and of course, to have the precious "yes" of his girlfriend.
Michael John Paul Banks, 27 years old from Fresno, climbed the 600-foot Morro Rock on Thursday to propose marriage to his girlfriend via Facetime, a video-messaging app.
Banks climbed up the eastern side of the Morro Rock 15 minutes before the sunrise, after the proposal he decided to take the steeper side of the rock to go down. But unlucky for him, he got stuck on his way down.
"He couldn't go any direction, on a sheer ledge, with his feet dangling 80 feet off the ground," said Todd Gailey, captain of Morro Bay Fire.
The rescuers called for help and asked for a helicopter. California Highway Patrol went to the scene shortly after 8:30 a.m.
Capt. Gailey descended with the help of a cable as he grabbed Banks from the sheer ledge. The two were hanging on the cable, with the helicopter's blade near whipping the rock.
Banks was calm the whole time the rescue was ongoing, but a "little unnerved," said Gailey.
The man was rescued and safely returned to the land after 9:30 a.m. with little scrapes and a misdemeanor citation for trespassing also billed for his unexpected helicopter ride.
"It was a pretty amazing rescue on the part of the Fire Department," said Dale Kinney, ranger from Morro Bay State Park.
The rescue team was composed of Morro Bay Fire, California Highway Patrol and Morro Bay State Park.
On the good side of this near end-betrothal event is that his girlfriend fortunately said "yes".
"There's plenty of safe and beautiful areas that people can choose from where you're not in danger of falling off a cliff," Gailey said pertaining to momentous moments such as Banks' marriage proposal to his girlfriend.
Morro Rock has several records of fatal falls over the past years. The Morro Bay is also dangerous as it sends massive waves that can sweep adventurous people and rescuers.
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Clathrate ices discovered in Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko could answer questions astronomers have about the formation of the solar system.
Comets are made of ice, dust and other materials, but astronomers have long questioned whether this ice is in the form of a highly ordered crystal or a random amorphous structure. One form of crystalline ices, known as clathrates, were the target of a successful search of the coma (or atmosphere) of Comet 67P.
This form of ice contains gas trapped within its structure, leading to a high degree of order within the structure. Molecules of the gases are released at specific temperatures, a phenomenon recorded by astronomers studying the coma of the body, popularly known as Rosetta's comet.
The discovery of clathrate ices in the coma of the comet suggests the frigid body likely formed significantly closer to the sun than previously believed.
"The structure and phase of the ice is important because it tells us a lot about how and where the comet may have formed. If the building blocks of 67P were predominantly crystalline ices and clathrates, then 67P likely agglomerated from chunks of ice closer to the sun. The protosolar nebula closer to the sun experienced higher temperatures and more turbulence where crystalline ices could form as the nebula cooled," said Adrienn Luspay-Kuti of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI).
Comets with irregular amorphous ices likely formed further away from the sun, where temperatures are lower, and turbulence is reduced.
Astronomers believe that the material within comets may, in many ways, be similar to the substances that were present during the formation of the solar system. Without the ability to directly sample ice and dust within the nucleus of comets, studying the coma of the frozen bodies can provide a glimpse inside the frigid structures. By analyzing material found here, astronomers believe they can learn more about the building blocks of our local solar family.
Data from the Rosetta spacecraft, managed by the European Space Agency (ESA), was examined, revealing the clathrate ice structure.
Comet 103P/Hartley, or Hartley 2, was examined by NASA scientists during the Epoki mission in November 2010. This comet, orbiting around the sun once every 6.5 years, is thought to be similar in structure to 67P. Comparison of the two comets could confirm the presence of clathrate ices, and provide further evidence of their formation close to the sun.
Analysis of the coma surrounding Comet 67P was profiled in the journal Science Advances.
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Encryption is now rolling out across every website and blog under the WordPress umbrella, turning HTTP to HTTPS and those blank pages on the left side of the URL to secured green locks.
Basically, what all this means for the users is that they'll be safe from security breaches, intruders, prying eyes, cookie theft and anything else along those lines. That's not all they're getting out of the whole deal, though, as Google loves websites with HTTPS. In other words, their blogs and websites will have greater visibility and better ranking in the search engine.
Now, about how to get in on the security action, all the users have to do is nothing. Yep, everyone gets an SSL certificate without having to activate or sign up for anything.
"For you, the users, that means you'll see secure encryption automatically deployed on every new site within minutes. We are closing the door to un-encrypted web traffic (HTTP) at every opportunity," Barry Abrahamson, CTO of WordPress, says.
For the record, WordPress subdomains - websites with the ".wordpress.com" appendage - already have encryption support since 2014, but it's about time for the others to be included in the mix.
Abrahamson also notes that the publishing platform was able to implement encryption on a massive scale thanks to "an efficient and automated way to provide SSL certificates for a large number of domains" from the Let's Encrypt project.
As mentioned earlier, a green lock icon on the left side of the address bar and an "https://" URL are indicators that the website is secured and has an SSL certificate.
On an interesting note, it has been determined that 25 percent of the websites around the globe is powered by WordPress back in November last year, so this development will provide security to a huge portion of the websites on the Internet.
Photo: Andrew Abogado | Flickr
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The government of Queensland in Australia has granted a mining license to an India-based mining company to dig the country's largest coal mine a move that draws criticism amid a severe coral bleaching episode of the Great Barrier Reef.
Three licenses issued on April 3 by Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk had allowed mining firm Adani to extract coal in the Galilee Basin of the state through a projected Carmichael coal mine.
The plan, estimated to lead to huge coal exports to India, will entail expanding an Abbot Point port adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef to accommodate greater traffic - something feared to release plumes from debris and soil over the reef and exacerbate its current ecosystem damage.
Environmentalists also warned against the consequences of mining and burning coal in the area, which will produce huge carbon dioxide emissions and worsen the current state of the reef.
In a statement, Australian Conservation Foundation CEO Kelly O'Shanassy calls the approval "grossly irresponsible" and warned that it will create millions of tons of pollution in the coming decades.
"By granting a license for this massive coal mine the Palaszczuk government is bowing to the demands of big polluters, not listening to the needs of the people," laments O'Shanassy, who cited the bleaching currently suffered by a thousand-kilometer reef stretch in the Barrier Reef due to extremely warm sea temperatures.
An aerial survey in March revealed that the northern region of the biggest reef system in the world is affected by the worst coral bleaching incident so far, affecting about 500 coral reefs spanning from Papua New Guinea to Cairns. A whopping 95 percent are considered severely bleached, with the bleak situation feared to endanger the Great Barrier Reef's world heritage status.
Dr. Steven Miles, environment minister of Queensland, pinpoints the need to "reduce as many pressures" on the reef system as possible. In this call that came five days after the government issued the mining licenses, Miles dubbed the latest bleaching event a "wake-up call" from climate change.
Miles calls for reducing emissions and ensuring clean water for the corals to minimize stress on the reef, which is a massive economic and tourism draw bringing in $6 billion to the Queensland economy and supporting 70,000 jobs.
Queensland Greens Senator Larissa Waters implies that Miles' statement is contrary to the reality that the Carmichael mine will bring about.
"[It] would generate 4.7 billion tonnes of climate pollution and requires mass dredging on the reef's coastline which will worsen water quality and rip up seagrass beds," she says in a Sydney Morning Herald report.
Photo: Paul Toogood | Flickr
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Alphabet X, the company's experimental technology lab, recently showcased its bipedal robot that has the capability to climb stairs and overcome hurdles.
SCHAFT, which is part of Alphabet's X and popular for winning a DARPA robotics challenge, showed off this robot during the keynote speech of former Android head Andy Rubin at the New Economic Summit (NEST) 2016 in Japan.
In 2013, the company acquired SCHAFT as part of the company's bid to penetrate the field of robotics. Originated from the University of Tokyo's JSK Robotics Laboratory, SCHAFT is among the robot companies owned by Alphabet.
With regard to its capability, this bipedal robot has the capability to climb stairs, balance on a pipe and navigate on challenging terrains, such as rocky areas, snow and more.
In a video uploaded by someone in the audience during the said event, and shared by IEEE Spectrum, the robot is seen balancing a load of food while passing through a stadium. It is even captured walking on a pebbly beach.
Moreover, this robot can likewise clean the stairs with the use of its spinning brush and its vacuum placed on its feet.
What are lacking, though, are the robot's arms to support it once it falls down.
An X spokesperson told IEEE Spectrum that the presentation was only a mere technical demonstration and not an official announcement for the product (yet).
"[It] wasn't a product announcement or indication of a specific product roadmap," said the spokesperson. "The team was simply delighted to have a chance to show them latest progress."
This means that it may still take a while, perhaps a few more years, before this robot officially hits the market.
At the moment, not much is known about SCHAFT's robot. It is apparent, though, that the company is trying to address a variety of real-world problems.
Just last month, we reported that Googles parent company, Alphabet, put Boston Dynamics up for sale, suggesting that it is not happy with this robotic subsidiary. Reportedly, the company believes that it will not be capable of producing considerable revenue.
Until we learn more about that, hit the play button below to get a glimpse of this SCHAFT bipedal robot.
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Owners of the international version of Samsung's Galaxy Note 4 can now upgrade to the latest version of Google's mobile OS, Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow.
The international Galaxy Note 4, model N910C, is the Exynos-powered version of Samsung's phablet of 2014. The Snapdragon variant, popular in North America, is just starting to receive the update to Marshmallow, as well.
Sprint, for example, recently released the Android 6.0.1 updates to its subscribers' Galaxy Note 4 and Note 5, along with the Galaxy S5 and S5 Sport. As to when other U.S. carriers such as AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon will follow suit still hangs in the air.
Nonetheless, Samsung unleashing Marshmallow on its past flagship phablet should be good news for other owners whose devices are locked onto other carriers. It may not be too long from now until every variant of the Note 4 gets all the latest features Google has packed into Android 6.0.1.
Note that Samsung's latest update release is not just for Android 6.0, but also for Android 6.0.1, which is the newest Marshmallow build so far. The size of the update is about 1.3 GB. That's reportedly smaller than a previous build for the Note 4 on another network.
Seeing as to how the Galaxy Note 4 is nearly a couple of years old, the device itself can start to feel a little old and laggy especially near the two-year mark of its product life cycle. The upgrade to Marshmallow, however, should give Note 4 owners a fresh experience with a brand-new operating system.
For example, Marshmallow should help to increase the Note 4's battery life with Doze, which basically idles all the apps running in the background if they're not actively in use. Also, Google Now On Tap and advanced app permissions in Marshmallow will give Note 4 owners greater control of their device and more speedy access to relevant information on their screens.
As it is the newest build of Android, Google has also thrown in some extra 200 new emojis along with the latest Android security patches for the month of April.
It's not just Google throwing in some goodies, however. Samsung has also refreshed TouchWiz in this update. One of the new features in TouchWiz, for example, is the Note 5's memo feature, which lets users write on the screen when the screen is off. That's now also being ported over to the Note 4 as well.
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BlackBerry to launch two new cheaper Android smartphones by December 2016
CEO John Chen of Blackberry on Friday confirmed its plans to launch two new Android-powered smartphones this year, even though it just launched the Priv Android smartphone at the end of 2015.
The company is eager to offer more devices because the Priv, which launched with a $700 price tag (now $650), was probably too high-end and expensive for people to consider.
The fact that we came out with a high-end phone [as our first Android device] was probably not as wise as it should have been, Chen told The National, while declining to say how many Privs were sold in the last quarter. A lot of enterprise customers have said to us, I want to buy your phone but $700 is a little too steep for me. Im more interested in a $400 device.
During last weeks quarterly earnings reporting, Chen warned analysts and reporters that the company might exit the smartphone business by fall, 2016, if the division didnt start making money.
In an interview with The National, an Abu Dhabi-based newspaper, the CEO suggested that one of the devices will have a hardware keyboard (which BlackBerry is famous for) while the other will be fully touchscreen. Theres no release date, but they should be significantly cheaper than the Privs original $750 price tag. The company will again be pushing its secure-enough-for-enterprise niche as a marketing point for its handsets with Chen hinting at a price around $400.
These two mid-range Android phones could very well be BlackBerrys last chance to revive the division. Chen still thinks the company has something to offer when it comes to Android because of its commitment to security.
Were the only people who really secure Android, taking the security features of BlackBerry that everyone knows us for and making it more reachable for the market.
Also, the CEO said there are no plans to release handsets using the BB10 operating system, though existing users will still get updates.
Chen confirmed that the companys first Android phone was priced too high at $700 and had been a slow-selling disappointment.
People do like our Priv, but theres a much more limited audience and that segment seems to be saturated at the moment, he said.
BlackBerry sold 600,000 phones in the first three months of 2016 across all its phone models, which was less than expected.
Chinas Great Firewall creator forced to use VPN to dodge his own creation
Fang Binxing, the digital architect of Chinas great firewall was publicly embarrassed this week after he was forced to use a virtual private network (VPN), an external server used by anyone in China seeking to access sites such as Google, Facebook or Twitter when trying to access a blocked web page, Hong Kongs Ming Pao newspaper reported.
The Register reports that, earlier this week, during a public discussion of internet security at the Harbin Institute of Technology in Heilongjiang province, Hong Kong media reported that Fang Binxing, who is credited with filtering mechanism by which the government dictates what Chinese can and cant see online, had run into some trouble trying to access a South Korean site to discuss that countrys online censorship.
Finding his path to the site blocked, Fang turned on a Virtual Private Network (VPN), the digital workaround employed by countless Chinese 29% of the countrys internet users in Q4 2015, according to Statista to access forbidden URLs (including online gambling sites). A self-conscious Fang reportedly urged his audience not to emulate his example.
Finding his path blocked, Fang proceeded to setup a VPN while the audience looked on. Once created, the VPN allowed the Great Firewall to be bypassed and the website loaded. However, a self-conscious Fang reportedly urged his audience not to imitate his example.
After deploying the VPN, Fang struggled with the inconsistent connection, with the link falling over twice as he tried to access Facebook and Google. Finally, he resorted to using Baidu to grab a screenshot of the Google homepage and continued with his talk. However, a planned Q&A scheduled for after his presentation was abruptly cancelled.
The incident has obviously sparked a lot of conversation online, with Chinese Internet users finding it hilarious that he was blocked by his own system. Sooner or later this clown and his accessory will be nailed up on the column of history in disgrace, posted one user named Li Wanjun on Chinas Twitter-like microblogging site Weibo. One may steal a horse, while another may not look over the hedge, posted Popular Computer Week in reference to the incident, using a traditional Chinese maxim to bemoan the arbitrary application of rules.
Last month, Hong Kong media reported that China had upgraded its anti-VPN technology, a move timed to coincide with the National Peoples Congress political gathering in Beijing. Local activists and other international site visitors claimed their VPNs either worked poorly or not at all.
China is also pushing new draft internet regulations that are supposedly aimed at Chinese domain registration services and China-hosted sites but critics claim the Ministry of Industry and Information Technologys new regulations are so generally written that they could be used to block any website registered outside of China.
The Cyberspace Administration of China has backed continued exploration and improvements to the governance of cyberspace with Chinese socialist characteristics and regulators want measures to ensure global cyberspace governance meshed with Chinese opinions and plans.
After a conference last year, President Xi Jinping said no country should pursue cyber hegemony and defended Chinas right to choose its own model of cyberspace governance.
The golden gong has been hit a hundred of times when a coder lands a job in this bootcamp
Makers Academy, a coding bootcamp whose objective is to turn people into software developers uses the celebration bell installed in their office in a unique way. They ring the giant gong installed in their office whenever one of its students gets a job.
Developers looking to make a career in software pay 8,000 to take the three-month Makers Academy crash course, in which they are taught computer programming languages like Java and Ruby.
While some students at the end of the programme go on to find a job for themselves, the huge majority are put forward for roles by Makers Academy, which has contacts with a number of employers, including Marks & Spencer, The Financial Times, Sky, and Deloitte Digital.
Congratulations to Michael, Tim, Yana and Harriet on getting some awesome jobs! This gong is for you ?? #MakersJobs A post shared by Makers Academy (@makersacademy) on Jan 29, 2016 at 9:26am PST
Other companies like General Assembly and Steer run their own coding bootcamps. For instance, General Assembly provides courses from 30 for a one day taster course to 9,000 for a three month Android Immersive Development course. Like Makers Academy, they look to prepare people with the skills they require to get their first job in tech. On the other hand, Makes Academy asserts it is making more junior software developers than any other coding bootcamp in the UK right now.
Since, it has been founded in 2012, nearly 500 to 600 people have graduated from the Makers Academy. A 20% cut of the students starting salary is paid by the new employer to Makers Academy, every time a job offer is made to its student.
While giving Business Insider a tour of the companys office, Ruben Kostucki, COO and founding member of Makers Academy said, We have a gong. Its the most important feature because it gets gonged every time a student gets a job. Its a really key element of the whole process.
The average starting salary for a Makers Academy graduate is 30,000 to 32,000, according to Kostucki, who claims that university computer science courses arent providing students with the vocational software development skills that UK companies need.
According to Kostucki, several Makers Academy students are just looking for a career change, while others join the course to make their foundation in coding so they can start a technology company of their own.
However, the Silicon Valley tech giants arent amongst some of the big companies that are employing directly from Makers Academy.
The engineers they hire in the UK tend to be very skilled, super-senior engineers, said Kostucki. Makers Academy is basically replenishing the market with junior developers.
Source: Business Insider
FBI Director Discloses Why He Puts Tape Over His Webcam
FBI Director James Comey during a Wednesday speech on privacy at Kenyon College, Ohio said that hes anxious enough about the prospect of secret surveillance which is why he places a piece of tape over his laptop computers webcam, a gesture that is often deemed to be paranoid, according to NPR.
Comey discussed a myriad of issues concerning privacy and encryption, repeating his argument that absolute privacy hampers law enforcement. This impromptu remark during the Q&A session at Kenyon College comes in the wake of the U.S. Department of Justices very public spat with Apple over hacking into a locked iPhone that belonged to one of the San Bernardino shooters. Even though the government used legal action to try and force Apple to help in unlocking the iPhone, when Apple refused, the FBI later announced that it had found a way to successfully break into the iPhone.
Comey admits he puts a piece of tape over the webcam lens on his laptop #KenyonCSAD The Kenyon Collegian (@KenyonCollegian) April 7, 2016
I saw something in the news, so I copied it. I put a piece of tape I have obviously a laptop, personal laptop I put a piece of tape over the camera, Comey said during his talk. Because I saw somebody smarter than I am had a piece of tape over their camera.
Comeys argument is that an obsession with privacy hurts law enforcement efforts, but he also revealed he understands why people are taking measures to protect themselves. In fact, he does exactly the same.
According to NPR, during his speech Comey also argued that tech companies should not look to make devices that are unhackable by law enforcement agencies. By Comeys own admission, he places tape over his laptops webcam for privacy reasons.
I spotted this warrant-proof anti lawful surveillance of webcam tech at Staples today. What if terrorists buy it? pic.twitter.com/ycaGgCoiDP Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) April 7, 2016
For some privacy advocates, Comeys tape measure is awfully hypocritical. On one hand, the FBI demands that software companies engineer make devices so that federal government can gain access. On the other hand, Comey is placing tape over his webcam, which renders it useless, were law enforcement to remotely deploy malware to turn it on without his knowledge. However, there are some who have come ahead to defend his reasoning.
Global warming is causing North Pole to move eastwards says NASA
According to a new NASA study, global warming is considered to be the reason behind shifting the way the Earth wobbles on its polar axis. In other words, even as the Earth spins on its axis in a west to east direction, completing a full rotation every 24 hours, that axis itself is also moving. This, in turn, means that the physical North and South poles are actually shifting, with the North Pole now drifting towards the United Kingdom.
Melting ice sheets, especially in Greenland, are changing the distribution of weight on Earth. This has caused both the North Pole and the wobble, which is called polar motion. If we lose mass from the Greenland ice sheet, we are essentially putting mass elsewhere. And as we redistribute the mass, the spin axis tends to find a new direction. And thats what we mean by polar motion, said Surendra Adhikari, a researcher with Caltech and NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory who conducted the work with his colleague Erik Ivins. The study was published Friday in the journal Science Advances.
Explorers and scientists have been constantly measuring the true and precise positions of the rotational poles since 1899 and for almost the entire 20th century they migrated a bit towards Canada. However, that has changed with this century and now its moving toward England, said study lead author Adhikari.
That may seem like a tiny variation, but there is very important information embedded in that, says Adhikari. The recent shift from the 20th-century direction is very dramatic, he added.
Even though a desktop globe always spins smoothly around the axis running through its north and south poles, a real planet wobbles.
Earths spin axis drifts slowly around the poles; the farthest away it has wobbled since observations began is 37 feet (12 meters).
While scientists say the shift is harmless, but they must be taken into account to get accurate results from GPS, Earth-observing satellites and observatories on the ground.
Around the year 2000, Earths spin axis took an abrupt turn toward the east and since then the motion has shifted sharply and now the North Pole is moving towards the U.K. and Europe. The motion has also sped up, though it still isnt very large. The movement towards Canada was at around 7 to 8 centimetres per year, Adhikari said, and the movement towards the U.K. is now about 16 to 18 centimetres per year.
Its no longer moving toward Hudson Bay, but instead toward the British Isles, said Adhikari.
The changes in Greenland as per the calculations of Adhikari and Ivins showed that the changes in Greenland alone do not generate the massive amount of energy required to pull the spin axis as far as it has shifted.
In the Southern Hemisphere, ice mass loss from West Antarctica is pulling, and ice mass gain in East Antarctica is pushing, Earths spin axis in the same direction that Greenland is pulling it from the north, but the collective effect is still not enough to clarify the speedup and new direction. Something east of Greenland has to be exercising an additional pull.
The researchers found the answer in Eurasia.
The bulk of the answer is a deficit of water in Eurasia: the Indian subcontinent and the Caspian Sea area, Adhikari said.
The discovery increases the chances that the 115-year record of east-west wobbles in Earths spin axis may, in fact, be a remarkably good record of changes in land water storage.
That could tell us something about past climate whether the intensity of drought or wetness has amplified over time, and in which locations, said Adhikari.
Jonathan Overpeck, professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona who wasnt part of the study, said this highlights how real and profoundly large an impact humans are having on the planet.
The studys co-author, NASA scientist Eirk Ivins said Greenland has lost on average more than 600 trillion pounds of ice a year since 2003, which in turn has an influence on the way the Earth shakes.
Ivins said he likes to think of it as a billion trucks each year dumping ice out of Greenland. On top of that, West Antarctica loses 275 trillion pounds of ice and East Antarctica gains about 165 trillion pounds of ice yearly, helping tilt the wobble further, Ivins said.
They all together pull polar motion towards the east, Adhikari said.
Jianli Chen, a senior research scientist at the University of Texas Center for Space Research, first endorsed the pole shift to climate change in 2013 and he said this new study takes his work a step further.
There is nothing to worry about, said Chen, who wasnt involved in the NASA study.
It is just another interesting effect of climate change.
A Real Glock gun turned into a clone of the Nintendo Duck Hunt zapper
Based on the fake gun used in Nintendos Duck Hunt game, someone has gone ahead and created very cool looking real gun.
A Cerakote coating business in Texas, Black Sheep Arms, managed to transform a standard Glock into something that resembled Nintendos original, non-lethal version, known as the NES Zapper gun. It has been posted on the Facebook page of Precision Syndicate LLC, a of Texas-based machine prototyping company.
Released in 1984 in Japan and later in the U.S., the gaming accessory let NES gamers to point the fake gun at their television screen and shoot game targets. It may look like a light gun, but the Nintendo Glock fires very real bullets.
Finally We were waiting for someone to let us do this. We werent the first to do it but WOW, this glock turned out good! Posted by Precision Syndicate, LLC on Wednesday, April 6, 2016
To make it work as an accessory for newer games, some game fans since then have modded the gun. However, its rather rare to see anyone use the playful Nintendo theme for real world weapons.
Responses to the post on Facebook have varied from people debating the sensibilities behind creating such a gun, to those enthusiastically attempting to find out how to buy one.
https://youtu.be/EaPs_SLO-88
The fact that this exists is why cops dont have the time to make the decision of its a toy or a gun, said one commenter, while another said, Worthless craps for making this! Not only would a child have a hard enough time telling the diff if its real or fake imagine all the law enforcements that now might second guess it and lose their life and others around!
However, there seem to be far more commenters probing about how to acquire the gun, which is a modified Glock.
Though, the concerns from some on the Facebook post may be well placed. Just a year and a half ago, a police officer in Ohio gravely shot at a 12-year-old Tamir Rice after the officer claimed that he confused the childs toy gun for a real weapon.
Dejabooters teen developer who crashed 200,000 websites with his software says he made it for earning money
The British teenager who made $70,000 (50,000) from his bedroom by selling software that was used to crash more than 200,000 websites around the world has been convicted of hacking offences. Worcestershire native Grant Manser was convicted on 10 counts and sentenced to two years in juvenile detention, suspended for 18 months.
Manser who is now a 20-year old, started developing and selling the software at the age of 16. He was arrested in November 2014 for going on a website crashing spree using his software.
Manser allegedly sold website-crashing software to around 4,000 customers who used it to carry out attacks on 224,548 targets from around the world, which included businesses, schools, colleges and government departments from Poland, France, the United States and the Netherlands, to name a few.
Manser got fame for his website crashing spree as a hacker but his lawyers insisted he isnt a hacker and that he developed the programs purely to earn money.
He is not a hacker. The system doesnt take or hack any information from the websites being attacked, said Jamie Baxter, the defence lawyer in the case. He was only 16 when he started to do this and it was his immaturity and naivety which led him to commit these offences.
Manser developed software that was then sold to his customers. Manser developed four tools called stressers which could launch multi level Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on the intended target. One of the targeted sites belonged to Harrogate and Hull College, whose system crashed for 14 hours. The buyer of stresser in this particular case was a student at the school who was unhappy to be in detention, it was revealed in court.
The programs, called Dejabooter, Vex-Stresser, netspoof and Refinedstresser, were sold on the dark web for as little as $7 to $30. Manser took payment through PayPal and was thought to have made 50,000 total from his stressers.
Manser was convicted in Birmingham Crown Court after pleading guilty to six charges under the Computer Misuse Act and four under the Serious Crime Act. Hell serve an 18 month suspended sentence, as well 100 hours unpaid work and an 800 fine.
The judge described Manser as young and naive.
The Conagua indicated that the atmospheric phenomenon registered maximum sustained winds of 140 kilometers per hour with gusts of up to 165 kilometers per hour. | Read More
Kishan Reddy slams TRS Govt over drought relief
Hyderabad, April 10 (INN): BJP MLA G. Kishan Reddy has strongly criticised the TRS Government for its alleged failure to deal with the drought situation in Telangana State.
Speaking to media persons after visiting the drought affected areas of Mahabubnagar district on Sunday, Kishan Reddy the drought has been playing havoc across the State. He said even marriages were being postponed due to drought situation. He said thousands of farmers and agricultural labourers were being forced to migrate to cities in search of livelihood. He said that the State Government has failed to arrange drinking water for villagers and cattle in affected villages.
Kishan Reddy claimed that the Central Government has so far released Rs. 800 crore towards drought relief. He said that the TRS Government was yet to spend the amount. He informed that the Telangana unit of BJP has prepared a report on drought situation and wanted to submit the same to Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao. However, he said that the Chief Minister was not giving appointment to the BJP leaders. He said KCR has sufficient time to receive defectors of opposition parties, but he has no time to discuss farmers' issues.
News Posted: 10 April, 2016
Dismiss Sujana Chowdhary, demands APCC Chief
Hyderabad, April 10 (INN): Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president Dr. N. Raghuveera Reddy on Sunday demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi immediately dismiss Sujana Chowdhary from his cabinet for his alleged involved in a bank fraud.
Speaking to media persons here, Raghuveera Reddy said Sujana Chowdhary had no moral right to continue as the Union Minister as he has been named in bank fraud. Describing Chowdhary as an economic offender, he said failure of the Prime Minister and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in taking action against him would prove that they too were involved in the crime.
Raghuveera Reddy also alleged that the BJP Government at the Centre and TDP Government in the State were looting public money. He said there has been an increase in corruption since both the parties came to power in 2014.
News Posted: 10 April, 2016
First time political candidate Andrew Dewson has warned some Gungahlin suburbs "could go the way of Tuggeranong" without proper investment from the ACT government.
Contesting October's ACT election as an independent in the seat of Yerrabi, the Harrison based public servant said there was a need for independent voices in the territory Assembly and the public was dissatisfied with the major parties.
Independent candidate for Yerrabi Andrew Dewson. Credit:Jamila Toderas
"I wanted to get a bit of discussion happening around Gungahlin and the ACT as a whole and to try and get the major parties to talk a bit more," he said. "It is going well so far, I've been getting a bit of attention and there are a lot of people out there open to an independent voice."
Among announcements made during the early months of his campaign, Mr Dewson has called for first home buyers to get preferential treatment in territory land sales, a government focus on housing affordability, the introduction of green waste bins for ACT homes and a nurse walk-in centre for Gungahlin.
The past week has demonstrated one of the most durable and yet under-recognised rules of politics: A person who writes a novel with a sex scene will never be prime minister.
The latest lab-rat to prove the rule is poor Dennis Jensen, the not-for-much-longer Liberal Member for Tangney in Western Australia, who was shown the door by preselectors in his safe seat last weekend. The result was a knife-edge affair. OK, possibly a blunt knife: Seven votes for Jensen, 57 against.
Dennis Jensen, Liberal Member for Tangney.
Jensen is suing The Australian newspaper for publishing, days out from the vote, an excerpt of his unpublished novel Sky Warrior, which he pitched to publishers nine years ago hoping it would become an anonymous smash hit. He slightly undermined the anonymity by using his parliamentary letterhead, a decision he has since conceded may have been a misstep.
"Yasmine didn't believe in wearing bras; in fact, she really didn't need to wear them as her breasts were still as firm as they had been in her late teens," reads one passage of the work, a geopolitical thriller with China and Indonesia in the baddie role.
The voters love Gonski. Astonishingly, every educational sector public, Catholic and Independent are also in favour. Labor, the Greens, most cross benchers, all state governments (except WA) are gung ho for Gonski. Teachers, principals, parents, teacher-educators, education researchers and unions are passionate about the scheme.
It seems the only people opposed are the federal LNP and a few right wing think tanks. So adamant is their opposition they are refusing to fund the last two years of the scheme although, as yet, we have not heard what they propose instead. There was a moment when it looked like they might be about to dump public education on the states and keep private schools for themselves, but that idea appears to have evaporated (phew!). The pressure on them to change their minds is intense and Labor cannot contain their glee at the prospect of a looming election fought over Gonski funding.
Which begs the question, why is our federal government so against the idea?
The most frequently used argument against Gonski is that we can't afford it. The Treasurer often expresses this by saying the scheme is "unfunded".
EDINBURGH Shakespeare's work will feature throughout this year's Edinburgh International Festival, marking the 400th anniversary of the playwright's death.
The program for the three-week event will involve performances from almost 2,450 artists from 36 nations.
A sketch of the Bard, William Shakespeare.
First appearances at the festival include Australian satirist Barry Humphries, Italian mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli and Scottish rock band Mogwai.
Audiences can celebrate Shakespeare's work with international reimaginings of three of his plays. Theatre maker Thomas Ostermeier returns to the festival with a reworking of Richard III in a production from Berlin's Schaubuhne Theatre while Cheek by Jowl offers a production of Measure for Measure which draws parallels with modern Russia.
Praise has flowed thick and fast for West Australian's premier wine region in recent years but Margaret River has now been given an unmatched stamp of approval from the world's most powerful voice in wine.
American Robert Parker has been the world's most powerful wine writer since the 1980s for his ability to influence wine purchases. A recent review of Cullen's top wines on his website has elevated them into the realms of Australia's greatest cabernets and chardonnays, ever.
Virginia Willcock is making cabernet sexy again at Vasse Felix.
It took some time for Australian wine writers to acknowledge that cabernet and chardonnay grown out of Margaret River was the best in the land but these wines have now achieved unparalleled ratings from the world's most influential wine source.
It's enough to make the interstate wine clan spit it.
A former Transport Workers Union official has claimed the tribunal that sets rates of pay for owner-drivers says the link between road safety and remuneration is "marginal" and that the union "doesn't care" about small operators.
Michael Wong, who worked for the union between 2009 and 2012 in the Queensland, NSW and National offices of the union, has also apologised for allowing his "professional skills to be used in a campaign for safe rates that would have a profoundly negative effect on the owner-drivers of Australia".
The extraordinary apology comes as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced on Sunday that if re-elected, his government would abolish the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal (RSRT).
Mr Turnbull said that two government-commissioned reviews of the RSRT, by Jaguar Consulting and PwC, had found no link between rates of pay and road safety and recommended it be abolished.
Chanmakara Sun has been a registered nurse in an Adelaide nursing home for about three years and is already planning to leave.
"The amount of stress and work is getting too much and we battle every day and the pay is horrible," he said.
Nursing home worker Chanmakara Sun in Adelaide. Credit:David Mariuz
Mr Sun said the home for 90 patients - most of whom have multiple chronic illnesses including heart and kidney failure and dementia - is constantly understaffed. During the day he has three enrolled nurses to help him medicate, monitor patients and dress wounds. He also manages 11 carers who are not qualified to do more than bathe, feed and change the elderly residents.
At night this drops to four carers. A patient once climbed out of his bedroom window without staff realising: "We found him hanging over the fence after 10 minutes but that could have been prevented if we had enough people to make sure all the residents are where they are supposed to be."
The manager of a NSW prison has been stood down after a young Islamic State supporter allegedly attacked a former Australian soldier in a jail cell.
The teenager allegedly used a sharp object to carve "e4e" into the man's head, an apparent reference to the terror group's "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" mantra, inside the Mid North Coast Correctional Centre in Kempsey on Thursday afternoon.
NSW Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin has stood down a prison manager after the attack. Credit:Edwina Pickles
"As a result of that I have decided to suspend the general manager of the correctional centre pending the outcome of this investigation," NSW Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin told reporters in Sydney on Sunday.
The 40-year-old victim was reported to be fighting for his life, but is now "close to being released back to a correctional centre", the Department of Corrective Services said on Sunday.
"We are, at the end of the day, a tiny brand trying to survive against global doughnut chains and competitors which have store footprints in the hundreds," Griffiths says. "I think that's the charm of it. It's akin to a market store." Brisbane's Doughnut Time opened in Melbourne's CBD to long queues. The business now employs 120 people, turns over $20 million and Griffiths is looking to grow the business further by heading international with a Japan opening in the pipeline and starting a delivery service. Griffith says social media has been key to Doughnut Time's growth with the business garnering more than 100,000 followers on Instagram. A red velvet doughnut at Shortstop, Melbourne.
"We just hit a time in the market when social media really took to something like doughnuts," he says. "I think timing is everything and I think that is to our advantage." Griffith believes Doughnut Time can survive once the current trend for doughnuts abates. Anthony Ivey and business partner Sinye Ooi from Shortstop. Everyone asks me, 'Are doughnuts the new cupcake?' That was the most common thing people would ask when I opened. I don't think they are. Anthony Ivey "What we are trying to do is create a brand and create something that has longevity," he says. "We don't want to go down a franchise model. To create a lasting brand you have to work with your customer and create more than the product, to create an experience and the overall package of it."
Shortstop Coffee & Donuts Griffiths wasn't the first Australian entrepreneur to spot the potential in doughnuts with Anthony Ivey starting doughnut and coffee business Shortstop Coffee & Donuts in 2014. Ivey says he noticed a gap in the market for North American "artisanal style" doughnuts teamed with quality coffee. "I think everybody enjoys doughnuts," he says. "It's the kind of thing that you don't need a good reason to have a doughnut. Doughnuts make you happy. You are always going to walk out of a doughnut shop with a smile on your face." Ivey says the simplicity of serving just one product with coffee appealed to him.
"We get to do something really, really well," he says. "We get people who come in and are a little surprised that we don't have sandwiches or tea but we'd rather focus on what we do." Last week Shortstop opened a store in Sydney and Ivey says there is potential for another Shortstop store in Melbourne. The current store was designed to make 300 to 400 doughnuts a day but now makes more than 1000 a day. "That's a lot and it gets pretty crazy in there and pretty intense making that many doughnuts a day," he says. Ivey says he is working hard to build a sustainable business.
"Everyone asks me, 'Are doughnuts the new cupcake?'" he says. "That was the most common thing people would ask when I opened. I don't think they are." Ivey says the rapid growth of other doughnut businesses "kind of scares me". "I still can't wrap my head around Doughnut Time," he says. "I feel like they are growing so quickly." He believes people will always want "a really good" doughnut. "I don't think it is a trend," he says. "I think some businesses are treating it as such and are trying to make as much money as they can with no respect for longevity." Ivey says the new doughnut businesses have small start-up costs so they will probably get their money back, but the difference is "we want to be around forever".
"I think all we have to do is make sure people can differentiate between what we are doing and what they are doing," he says. "I do feel like it is going through a bit of a bubble so I want to make sure that we grow very organically and just grow where there is demand." Behind the trend But Ken Burgin, the owner of Profitable Hospitality, a consultancy that advises restaurants and catering groups, says doughnuts are "the cupcakes of 2016". "It's sugar, flour and water, put it together for 50 and then it all comes down to volume," he says. "They put pretty things on top which commands another couple of dollars. The markup would be pretty good." Burgin says social media and particularly Instagram has been key to the popularity of doughnuts.
A cluster of Parkinson's disease has been discovered in a key Victorian barley, chickpea and lentil farming region where researchers say its prevalence is up to 78 per cent higher than the rest of the state.
The discovery by a team of health researchers and scientists has sparked calls for urgent research into links with pesticides and other farming techniques used in the Grampians and Loddon Mallee regions.
The abnormally high rates were found in four neighbouring local government areas in the state's north-west that all produce barley and pulses (chickpeas, beans and lentils), by a joint Monash University and the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health study.
They report the rate of Parkinson's is 78 per cent higher than the state average of .5 per cent in the Buloke Shire, 76 per cent higher in Horsham, 57 per cent higher in the Northern Grampians and 34 per cent higher in Yarriambiack.
Wyoming/Colorado: Continuing a string of victories across the West, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont won the Wyoming caucuses Saturday, a symbolic triumph if not a race-altering one in the last Democratic contest before the April 19 New York primary. Sanders beat Hillary Clinton statewide by about 11 percentage points, though the end result was effectively a tie, as each candidate took seven of Wyoming's 14 pledged delegates, the fewest any state had to offer. Clinton's nationwide lead remained at 219. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders won the Wyoming caucuses on Saturday. Credit:AP But after Sanders' recent big victories in Washington state, Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Hawaii and Wisconsin, it was more evidence of Clinton's weaknesses among white and liberal voters as the race moves to major primaries in New York and elsewhere in the Northeast. "We just won Wyoming," Sanders said, pausing unexpectedly while speaking at a rally at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center in New York.
His supporters leapt to their feet and gave him a standing ovation. He thanked Wyoming voters, but said with a smile, "There are probably more people in this room than there are in Wyoming." It was the only contest of the day for the Democrats. In Colorado, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas swept all of the state's delegate elections, which ended Saturday at the state Republican convention when he picked up the remaining 13, bringing his total there to 34. Cruz, the only candidate to speak at the convention, received a rousing reception Saturday as he tried to gain as many of the remaining delegates as he could. "It's easy to talk about making America great again," he said, taking a dig at his rival, Donald Trump, who had won no delegates in Colorado up to that point. "But the real question is, do you understand the principles and values that made America great in the first place?" Like Sanders, Cruz still trails the front-runner in his race, Trump. And the campaign now moves to territory likely to be far more favourable to Trump.
The virtual protest comes as Cameron took the unusual step on Sunday of publishing his tax records to try to end days of questions about his personal wealth caused by the mention of his late father's offshore fund in the Panama Papers. Mr Cameron's initial reluctance to admit that he had benefited from the fund caused a furore, compounding his problems when he faces a huge political fight to persuade Britons to vote to stay in the European Union in a June 23 referendum. Under fire: Prime Minister David Cameron Credit:Getty Images
He would attempt to regain the upper hand when appearing in the House of Commons later on Monday. "This government has done more than any other to take action against corruption in all its forms, but we will go further," Mr Cameron would say, according to advance excerpts of his statement circulated by his Downing Street office. Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has accused Cameron of misleading the public. Credit:AP "That is why we will legislate this year to hold companies who fail to stop their employees facilitating tax evasion criminally liable." The plan had already been announced by Finance Minister George Osborne in March 2015, but previously the commitment was to introduce the legislation by 2020, Downing Street said.
The EU issue - known as Brexit - has split his Conservative Party, while the government has been going through a tough patch over a senior minister's resignation, a U-turn on welfare cuts and accusations it is failing to protect Britain's steel industry. After saying on Saturday that he could have handled the fallout from the Panama disclosures better, Mr Cameron released a summary of his tax records for the past six years. But any hope that this would draw a line under the row was short-lived, as the main Sunday newspapers zeroed in on a gift of 200,000 ($282,500) Mr Cameron received from his mother in 2011, suggesting it may be a way of avoiding inheritance tax. A source at Mr Cameron's Downing Street office said the suggestion was inaccurate, the gift had been declared and this was about a mother making a gift to her son in the same legal way that hundreds of thousands of Britons do every year. Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has accused Mr Cameron of misleading the public by issuing what he described as four "weasel-worded" statements in as many days before finally admitting that he had benefited from his father's fund.
After the tax records were published, Mr Corbyn and other politicians continued to call for further disclosures. Some politicians who are campaigning for Britain to vote to stay in the EU in June's referendum are concerned that the damage to Mr Cameron is bad for their side, as he has previously been considered the best advocate for an "in" vote. "The scandals over David Cameron's finances ... may tip the decision further towards 'leave'," said former Scottish National Party leader Gordon Wilson in a statement on Sunday. Mr Cameron is not accused of having done anything illegal, and the fact that he is a wealthy man is nothing new. But the past week has been damaging because the drip-drip of carefully worded statements before the fuller disclosure created the impression he may have had something to hide.
Bookmakers William Hill said they had cut their odds on Mr Cameron resigning the prime ministership this year to 2/1, compared with 16/1 when he won the last general election last May. Mr Cameron said on Thursday his father's investment trust was not set up to avoid tax but to invest in dollar-denominated shares. He said he had paid all taxes due on his own investment, which was worth about 30,000 when he sold it in 2010. However, Mr Cameron stands accused of hypocrisy after portraying his government as being in the forefront of global efforts to crack down on offshore tax havens. A comment he made in 2012 about a famous comedian's legal tax avoidance scheme being "morally wrong" has been widely quoted by media. Scores of politicians and business figures have been implicated in the Panama Papers, including the prime minister of Iceland who has since stepped down. The 11.5 million documents leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca detail the creation of more than 200,000 companies in offshore tax havens. The documents disclosed by Downing Street on Sunday, from RNS Chartered Accountants, show Mr Cameron paid tax of 75,898 on income of 200,307 in the 2014-2015 financial year, the most recent one included.
Chinese fisherman Li Xianchuan poses for a photo on a fishing boat at the port in Tanmen, China. Chinese fishermen working out of the Hainan island port say they now enjoy much greater support from their country's beefed-up coast guard. Credit:AP Last month, about 100 Chinese fishing boats were found by the Malaysians inside their waters in the South China Sea, accompanied by two Chinese coast guard vessels, the Malaysian authorities said. Vietnam said it had recently seized a Chinese vessel, disguised as a fishing boat in the Gulf of Tonkin, that was carrying 100,000 litres of fuel to resupply Chinese fishing boats. Anton Leonard, secretary-general of the Indonesian Fishermen's Association, says the fish-rich waters around Indonesia's Natuna Islands have a long history of being contested. Credit:AP Most of the disputes are inside the so-called nine dashes, an area drawn by China in the 1940s that covers more than 80 per cent of the South China Sea, though it is not recognised by international law.
In response to China's bold stance, Indonesian Defence Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu said he would deploy American F-16s to the Natuna Islands to deter what he called "thieves," in reference to the Chinese. A Chinese Coast Guard boat circles a Filipino fishing boat near Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea last year. Credit:Renato Etac via AP Indonesian Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti said Indonesia felt "sabotaged". The Chinese boat was well inside Indonesia's 320-kilometre exclusive economic zone, which is recognised by international law and overlaps with the nine-dash line. The members of the Chinese fishing crew were detained on the Natuna Islands, and the most senior members, including the captain, are likely to face charges, Pudjiastuti said. A map showing China's "nine-dash line" and Indonesia's Natuna Islands, with the port of Beihai to the north. Credit:New York Times
The Indonesians were justified in their irritation, Martinson said. "China's claim to jurisdiction over waters within Indonesia's exclusive economic zone on the basis of the nine-dash line is preposterous," he said. "When you add the aggressive pursuit to the territorial sea and the ramming, it is very easy to understand the Indonesian anger." In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry defended the fishing trawler, saying it was operating in "traditional Chinese fishing grounds", the phase China often uses in reference to the nine-dash line. Back home, Zhang has been called the "lucky fisherman" who got away. He talked about his ordeal from the docks here in Beihai, where fishing vessels that travel all over the South China Sea bring back their hauls, including stingrays, baby sharks and squid. As the noontime sun was beating down on the fishing boat, and the crew was on deck cleaning the fishing nets of debris from the sea, someone called, "'A gunboat is coming,'" Zhang said.
"It took them about 30 minutes to get near," he said. "I heard two shots - 'pa, pa' - and the sound of their vessel knocking on our ship. Their boat was too small to crash into a large ship like ours. Soon I heard more intensified shooting." Pudjiastuti said the men on the vessel had been lightly armed. Three Indonesians in dark green camouflage and helmets boarded the trawler and told the members of the crew to squat with their hands on their heads, Zhang said. They were ordered onto the Indonesian boat, but soon he and the captain were summoned back to their vessel to turn on the engines. By that time, he said, the captain had alerted the Chinese coast guard of their predicament. With the three Indonesians still on board, Zhang said, he drove the boat at less than maximum speed, hoping the coast guard would rescue them before they reached Indonesia. He was sleeping when the captain yelled that the Chinese coast guard had arrived. "The Chinese Coast Guard vessel was huge," Zhang said. "They were more than twice our size. They announced over a loudspeaker: 'This is the Chinese Coast Guard.'"
When the coast guard cutter rammed the trawler to free it, the Indonesian police officers who had remained aboard with Zhang ramped up the engines to try to get away. In the commotion, one of the engines almost ran out of oil, sending up clouds of white smoke. The Indonesians fled, taking the Chinese captain with them and leaving Zhang all alone to fix the engine. The Chinese coast guard called out to him: "'Can you drive the boat?' I said, 'So-so.'" Zhang said the two boats had then travelled together for about a week back to Beihai. At the dock, the boat owner, Chen Jifa, said he was confident the Chinese government had the power to arrange the return of the detained crew.
TORONTO, April 8, 2016 /CNW/ - 20 Uber drivers have been charged under the Highway Traffic Act by Niagara Regional Police in a sting operation conducted over several weeks. The Toronto Taxi Alliance commends Niagara Police for its dedication to enforcing the law for the protection of passengers and citizens.
The Toronto Police Service has chosen not to enforce the very same law despite repeated requests that it do so.
Frighteningly, in charging only 20 Uber drivers, Niagara police also found:
One of the drivers was not the advertised Uber driver of record
One of the drivers was currently charged with a criminal offence
One of the vehicles used was not currently registered
Three of the drivers were from outside the Niagara Region and did not know the area
You can read the entire Niagara Region Police Service release here:
http://www.niagarapolice.ca/en/News/index.aspx?newsId=3c866322-ac85-499d-8eba-a9721d4b1873
Nutson's Weekly Automotive News Digest
April 4-10, 2016
By Larry Nutson
Senior Editor and Bureau Chief
Chicago Bureau
The Auto Channel
AUTO CENTRAL Chicago, April 10, 2016; Every Sunday Larry Nutson, Senior Editor and Chicago Car Guy along with fellow senior editors Steve Purdy and Thom Cannell from The Auto Channel Michigan Bureau, give you TACH's "take" on this past week's automotive news in easy to digest mega-tweet sized nuggets. If you wish to know more just click on the link that will take you to the full story as published here on The Auto Channel.
If you are a car and driving fan like we all are here at The Auto Channel, you can easily wish to "catch up" on these stories as well put them in context with the past 20 year's 1,978,003 automotive news, automotive stories, articles, reviews, archived news, video, audio, rants and raves. Just search The Auto Channel's Automotive News Archive.
Hey Boston TV viewers, you can now enjoy The Auto Channel TV Network "Free and Clear" on WHDT Channel 3 in Boston and on your local cable systems. Just added Naples Florida, along with all South Florida auto fans who can continue to watch The Auto Channel TV Network on WHDT-TV Channel 9 in West Palm Beach as well as cable channel's 17 and 438, channel 9 Miami. WHDN launched its full schedule (including The Auto Channel)of broadcasting in the Naples-Fort Myers market on digital PSIP channel 9.1 channel. Enjoy and thanks for the positive feedback and ratings. See You Next Week, LN.
The Past Week's Automotive News Highlights In Easy To Digest Chunks
April 4-10, 2016
* Biggest news of the week for many of us was the retirement announcement of GM VP Global Design, Ed Welburn. Only the sixth person to hold that position, the soft-spoken and highly respected Welburn is capping off a 44-year career with GM. He started in 1972 under legendary design VP Bill Mitchell, who was only the second in that job. Taking over on July 1st will be 33-year GM veteran, Mike Simcoe. Commenting on the transition GMs #2 guy Mark Reuss commented on the depth of the bench Welburn has built up insuring the success of GM Design for years to come. More Ed Welburn
* Updating on our report from last week, Tesla say it has now received around 325,000 reservations for its new Model 3 sedan. Teslas new Model 3 was unveiled to great fanfare last week. The all-electric sedan will start at $35,000 before federal and state incentives, but we expect the first production cars to be heavily loaded and cost much more. The EV has a range of 215 miles per charge and can accelerate from stop to 60 in less than six seconds. Customers must put down $1,000 to reserve one of the cars, which are scheduled to go on sale in late 2017. Some may wait a long time for a car based on slow ramp-up of production and full production capacity. MORE
* Our colleagues at The Detroit Bureau pointed out this week that some of the 300,000+ Tesla Model 3 hand raisers who made $1,000 deposits may get a financial surprise when they take delivery of the car. Paul Eisenstein of TDB pointed out the Federal legislation that grants a $7,500 tax credit may not be available. It is only meant to cover the first 200,000 cars from a manufacturer and Tesla has already sold over 50,000 cars. Pundits note that if the company meets its current production expectations all of their credits could be gone before the Model 3 begins delivery.
* Toyota announced a $1 billion investment to create the companys third autonomous vehicle research facility located near the University of Michigan. The two other facilities are located in California near Stanford and in Cambridge at MIT. In a statement the company said they are locating this centre in Ann Arbor because of the strength of the university; the utility of Mcity and the Mobility Transportation Center . . . and the proximity . . . to our two . . . Toyota Technical Centers nearby.
* The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute's latest report from Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle says the average fuel economy (window-sticker value) of new vehicles sold in the U.S. in March 2016 was 25.3 mpgunchanged from the revised value for February 2016. Fuel economy is down 0.5 mpg from the peak reached in August 2014, but still up 5.2 mpg since October 2007 (the first month of their monitoring).
* The third in a series of six bellwether cases regarding GMs defective ignition switch problems was settled this week unexpectedly at the behest of the company. GM came out on top in the first two cases for different reasons, but this was the first that involved a fatality. Analysts suggest the company did not want this one argued in open court worrying it could taint future cases. Terms of the settlement are confidential.
* Mercedes-Benz is looking at a second class-action law suit charging the company with cheating on diesel emissions testing and using a defeat device to skirt US regulations. Both charges essentially mimic charges against VW last year. VW immediately admitted to wrong doing and set about finding fixes and making atonement. Mercedes-Benz denies the allegations and calls the suit unfounded. EPA officials have found no problems with the vehicles in question and have not initiated a formal investigation.
* With the death of a Texas teen driver on March 31st the Takata airbag problems got front page mention in the news. This time it was a 2002 Honda Civic that rear ended another car setting off the airbag. A shard of metal went into the teens neck. So far only a small number of the millions of cars recalled have gotten fixed. Automakers are all urging owners to get them repaired. To see if your car is on the list go to the NHTSA: www.safercar.gov/rs/takata/takatalist.html
* Ford is recalling about 38,000 Transit vans in the U.S. and Canada because the side-curtain air bags may not protect people properly in a crash. The recall covers low-roof Transit vans from the 2015 and 2016 model years.
* We reported here in late January that Citroen was considering a return to the US market. Now news reports from Paris say the same. PSA CEO Carlos Tavares announced that a 10-year plan has been started to reintroduce the company to the North American market. The first steps would revolve more around car sharing and mobility plans rather than actually trying to sell cars to dealers. The program may start in 2017 using an EV. MORE Citroen Cactus
* A report from AAA says that car operating total costs are lower than ever. On average, drivers are paying 57 cents per mile, which amounts to $713 a month or $8,558 annually. That covers everything from gas, insurance and other fixed costs that come with car ownership.
* At what rate is manual drift occurring in the American auto industry, and is there a difference between the rate of manual transmission use between men and women? Swapalease.com, the nations largest car lease marketplace, recently analyzed over 50,000 driver records from its marketplace dating back to 2012 to uncover some interesting trends. Manual drift is a phrase coined by Swapalease.com that addresses the slow sunset of interest in manual transmissions found in todays cars. According to analysis conducted recently by the company, the number of manual transmission vehicles driven by Americans has dropped roughly 22% since 2012. In its analysis of over 50,000 vehicle records dating back to 2012, Swapalease.com has found that the rate of use is declining for both genders, but it is happening at a faster pace for men compared to women. In fact, the percentage of men driving manual transmission vehicles has dropped from 85.4% in 2012 to 81.2% in 2015. As a result, the percentage for women has responded by adjusting from 14.6% in 2012 to 18.8% in 2015.
* Ford Mustang beat its rivals to become Germanys No.1 top-selling sports coupe in March, according to data published by German Federal Motor Transport Authority, KBA. Germans have fallen in love with the Mustang. Driving a Mustang GT on the Autobahn is a one of a kind experience for people who love cars, said Wolfgang Kopplin, managing Director Ford Germany.
* Take a good look in you rearview mirror. Lawbreakers will now have a more difficult time recognizing the profile of the best-selling police vehicle in their rearview mirrors. Roof mounted lights may be a thing off the past. Ford announced it will offer a new, factory-installed front interior visor light bar that provides a stealth appearance for police agency patrol vehicles.
2016 Lexus RC 200t Review By Larry Nutson
SEE ALSO: Totally Lexus
2016 Lexus RC 200t - A 2+2 for you
By Larry Nutson
Senior Editor and Bureau Chief
Chicago Bureau
The Auto Channel
p>Prior to last year, most of the luxury coupes on the market have been German brands along with the recent addition of the Cadillacs ATS coupe. Lexus changed that with the introduction of the 2015 RC 350 2-door coupe with the desire to attract the next generation of luxury buyers and to bring new customers to the brand.
Now just one year after its introduction the Lexus RC model range has been broadened to add the new RC 200t and RC 300 AWD joining with the 306HP V6 RC 350.
The new RC 200t, available as RWD only, features a 241 HP 2.0-liter twin-scroll turbocharged inline four-cylinder engine with intercooler. Its paired to an eight-speed automatic transmission.
The new RC 300 AWD is offered for those folks who live in the rainy and snowy parts of the country and features a 255HP 3.5-liter V6 engine paired to a six-speed automatic transmission.
Lexus offers the RC 350 in both rear-wheel drive and with AWD all-weather drive, the latter using a six-speed automatic transmission, and also F SPORT versions.
I drove the 2015 RC 350 about a year ago and this time around I spent a week with the new 200t. With a base price of $39,995 my media-loaner RC 200t was also equipped with the F-SPORT Package for another $4,105.
The F-SPORT package includes a unique front fascia and spindle grille, 19-inch wheels with staggered-size summer performance tires and some other exterior trim items. The interior features unique seats with perforated leather trim and aluminum pedals. On the performance side, the F SPORT has standard Adaptive Variable Suspension system and the available Lexus Dynamic Handling system, which includes rear-wheel steering.
My drive last year in the RC 350 took place in late winter and I was a little concerned about taking the summer-tire equipped RWD rocket on a road trip for the fear of snow. Mother nature was on my side and I was able to enjoy the all-out performance of the RC 350 back then.
We enjoyed a mild winter this year and during my 200t drive we were already seeing touches of springtime. Given the three models to choose from, I would choose the new RC 300 AWD if I were buying. With the Chicago winters this is probably the best choice so as to not jeopardize a planned road trip due to winter snow. I get along just fine with public transportation or taxis in Chicago for everyday in-city business. The RWD models probably provide the most fun to drive. If I was willing to leave the RC coupe in the garage during snow RWD might be the way to go for those dry road excursions.
Another consideration on which model to choose is of course fuel consumption. The 200t has the best EPA test-cycle ratings of 26 combined mpg, with 22 city mpg and 32 highway mpg. The 300, 350 and 350 AWD are pretty much rated the same in the EPA test-cycle each with 19 city mpg and 26 highway mpg for both AWD models. You get 2 more highway mpg, or a test-cycle rating of 28 mph with the 350 RWD. Remember these are laboratory tests and your driving style will have the most impact on what fuel consumption you achieve. The large 17.4 gallon fuel tank should make for a good all-day road trip without needing to stop for refueling.
Lexus has equipped the RC coupes with some of the semi-autonomous driver-assistance features that are offered today. The RC coupes do have Blind Spot Monitor with rear cross traffic alert. Also equipped is a back up camera.
An available Pre-Collision Brake and Pre-Collision Brake Assist systems uses the radar sensors of the Adaptive Cruise Control to detect the potential for a collision with an obstacle or vehicle ahead. Both systems can operate brake control to increase the drivers braking effort and reduce the impact.
Lexus has said that all of its models will have automatic emergency braking (AEB) in a couple years and I expect well see lane keep assist also offered.
I like the Lexus RC coupe. I liked it last year when I drove the RC 350 and I still like it in the RC 200t configuration. From the outside its distinctive and in many ways bold. I like sliding down into the drivers seat and being low to the ground so I can feel the dynamics of the entire car. The interior is well appointed and quite luxurious and comfortable. The rigid structure gives a feeling of quality and certainly improves the handling. The ride is a bit harsh especially with the really low profile summer tires but not uncomfortable.
Acceleration from stop is adequate in the 200t getting you to 60 mph in 7.3 seconds. The V6 models bring you down into the low 6-second range which is plenty. Yes there are quicker accelerating cars on the market but you better be paying close attention and out in the wide open spaces when you drop the hammer on one of those. As for top speed, hows 143 mph in the RC 200t.
More facts and figures on the Lexus RC can be found at www.lexus.com. You can compare this luxo-coupe to others right here at www.theautochannel.com.
Lexus made a good move to add the two new models. The variation in power train choices will attract more buyers. Many folks want a personal luxury car and the 200t will satisfy that buyer who doesnt want or need the higher output of the V6 powered RC 350.
2016 Larry Nutson, the Chicago Car Guy
The Most In-Depth Lexus Vehicle Shopper's Research - Anywhere!
On the cover of Ken Adachis The Enemy That Never Was, the first book written about the Japanese Canadians and the wartime internment, is a close-up of a little girls face. She is only 5 or 6 years old, I would guess, maybe seven at the most. She is leaning forward and biting her lip, her intent gaze focused not on the camera but on something in the distance that we cannot see. I have always been captured by her expression: an ambiguous mix of anxiety and anticipation, uncertainty and curiosity. Its a childs face, full of innocence and sweetness, but darker shadows seem to hover around the edges of her mouth, as if the worried look of a much older person has begun to etch its traces onto her young face.
Although I dont know who the girl is, I will confess I have been haunted by her image for a very long time. In the years leading up to the redress movement, I bought and read The Enemy That Never Was, and the book has been in my possession ever since. Every time I packed my belongings to move, every time I reorganized the books on my shelves, every time I touched this book, I would inevitably look at the cover and stare at the girl.
The full photograph from which the close-up is taken appears later in the book. It shows the girl surrounded by a crowd of Japanese Canadians who are waiting at a train station. Suitcases and boxes sit on the ground in front of them. The girl is leaning forward as far as she can, straining to look down the tracks, one imagines. Wanting to be the first to catch a glimpse of the train.
Without reading the caption, the contents of this picture seem obvious. In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, Japanese Canadians were subject to mass uprooting and expulsion just like their Japanese American counterparts. They were forcibly removed from their homes on the Pacific coast and interned in remote detention camps in the rugged mountains of the British Columbia interior. Looking at this photograph you would naturally assume it shows a group of Japanese Canadians on their way to the internment camps in 1942.
But it is not.
For this is a photograph of the second uprooting, which took place after the war in 1946 when nearly 4,000 Japanese Canadiansclose to one-fifth of the total populationwere repatriated or deported to an impoverished and war-devastated Japan.
How did this happen?
In the spring of 1945, at a time when Japanese Americans were being released from the camps and allowed to return to the West Coast, Japanese Canadians were facing a very different fate. Racist politicians, who had long been calling for the deportation of all Japanese Canadians, increased pressure for a solution to the Japanese problem. Especially in British Columbia, where they were determined to purge their own province of the Japanese presence forever, they must have panicked upon hearing the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in December 1944 which effectively closed the camps and returned the right of freedom of movement to Japanese Americans. Canada and the United States may be two different countries, but they have always watched each other closely.
And so government officials devised the Canadian version of a loyalty questionnaire, otherwise known as the repatriation survey, which forced people to choose between only two options: move East of the Rockies and disperse, or go to Japan. Those who agreed to move East immediately and cooperate with the government policy of dispersal would be considered loyal and could stay in Canada. Those who signed an application for repatriation were labeled disloyal and would be deported when the war ended.
The option of returning home to the West Coast was not available. In fact, Japanese Canadians would not be allowed within 100 miles of the Pacific coast until April 1949, four years after the end of the war.
The harsh ultimatum was terrifying, and the camps quickly filled with panic, anger, confusion, and rumor. At the time of the survey, the war was still on, and no one knew when it would end. Some diehards fervently believed that Japan would win. Others feared that racism elsewhere in Canada would be even worse than what they had already encountered. All too often Canadian-born children found themselves torn between wanting to stay and being obligated to accompany parents who, for reasons of old age or poor health or sheer bitterness at having lost everything, wanted to repatriate. For many families who had been split up during the relocation, face-to-face discussion was impossible.
The survey was conducted with fierce efficiency and officials swept through the camps in only one month, forcing people to decide without adequate time or information and under enormous duress.
As if the prospect of moving to a distant, unknown locale were not intimidating enough, even worse was the insidious policy of dispersal. Japanese Canadians had to accept being scattered across the country. To refuse whatever jobs were offered, as one official notice bluntly stated, may be regarded at a later date as a lack of co-operation with the Canadian government in carrying out the policy of dispersal. They were warned never to form a community again as they had in pre-war Vancouver. For all the hardship entailed in living in the camps, at least people had always had each other for support. Moving east would change that. On the other hand, the government offered incentives to make repatriation an attractive and logical choice: free tickets for as many family members as necessary and no limits on the amount of baggage or cargo that could be taken.
Between May and December of 1946, five American transport ships set sail from Vancouver harbor carrying the deportees to Occupied Japan. Over half were Canadian citizens born in Canada, and of this group, one-third were dependent children under the age of 16. Could it really be said they were re-patriating if they were going to a country they had never set foot in before? Some spoke good Japanese, others barely a word. Almost all would have endured starvation conditions and painful discrimination as outsiders.
That was 70 years ago, and yet once again in some quarters we hear the ugly, irrational invocation of the word deportation, this time directed at other groups. It was wrong back then to target an entire people on the basis of ethnic identity. It is just as wrong today.
I look at the little girls face. Shes a stranger and yet she could so easily have been somebody one of my relatives might have known in the camps. I look at her face and I realize this: Had I been born earlier, she could have been me.
She could have been me.
She could be anyone of us.
A third-generation Japanese Canadian, Lynne Kutsukake worked for many years as a librarian at the University of Toronto, specializing in Japanese materials. Her short fiction has appeared in The Dalhousie Review, Grain, The Windsor Review, Ricepaper, and Prairie Fire. The Translation of Love, out now from Doubleday, is her first novel.
A new report published April 4 in the premier science magazine Nature is claiming that human sacrifice played an important feature in making us the civilized yet stratified folks that we are today. The study, claim its authors, proves a darker link between religion and the evolution of modern hierarchical societies.
Using phylogenetic analysis (a tool used to trace evolutionary family trees and the relationship between different languages) the researchers plotted the connections between numerous cultural groups across the Pacific. The groups had their ancestral origins in Taiwan but had spread as far south as New Zealand and as far east as Easter Island.
Human sacrifice from among these groups was practiced for a wide variety of reasons and in fairly diverse situations. A sacrifice might be demanded at the outbreak of war, in times of disease or social crisis, when a leader died, or when commencing a building project. And sacrifices were carried out in diverse way: by drowning, strangulation, decapitation, burning, crushing, or burial.
Despite this diversity the researchers detected a central theme. Using historical and ethnographic data the authors of they found that, while the motivations for practicing human sacrifice varied, there was a consistent correlation between sacrifice and social stratification.
Apparently of the egalitarian societies included in the study only 25 percent practiced human sacrifice; among the moderately hierarchical 37 percent engaged in it; and of the most highly stratified groups 65 percent utilized the practice. In these examples those executed tended to come from the lower levels of society. In other words: people kill the weak to prop up the powerful.
The authors conclude that human sacrifice was instrumental in the transforming humans transition from the small egalitarian groups of our ancestors, to the large stratified societies we live in today. Yikes.
The study has been criticized for both stating and overstating the obvious. The idea that human sacrifice (like all forms of sacrifice) reinforced social hierarchy has been recognized in sociology and religious studies for over a century. At the same time it is unclear if a study of Pacific-based cultures is relevant for our understanding of sacrifice in Mesoamerica, Europe, or elsewhere. Or if the study has proved that the relationship between human sacrifice and social stratification is causal.
What does seem to be undeniably true is that human sacrifice is a feature of religious mythology the world over. A number of societies, including the ancient Egyptians, would inter servants or wives alongside deceased men. Mesoamerican groups like the Incas, the Mayans, and the Pijao regularly sacrificed their enemies to the gods. At the beginning of the Trojan War, Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia for favorable sailing conditions to Troy. The Celts are knownvia Julius Caesar and Nicolas Cage moviesto have burned their human offerings in a wicker man. Even the Romans, famed for the opposition to human sacrifice, twice made an exception during times of crisis and buried foreign prisoners of war alive. Judaism and Christianity may have spurned human sacrifice but Abraham came pretty close, and Israelite leader Jephthah actually offered up his daughter in fulfillment of a vow. And, according to early Christian writers, the people of North Africa would sacrifice their infant children to the gods Baal and Taanit.
In some cases these stories support the idea that only the weakest in society should be sacrificed to the gods. In times of trouble, ancient Greeks practiced what was known as a pharmakos ritual. A beggar or prisoner-of-war would be dressed as a king and paraded around the city before being driven out, beaten, andin many caseskilled. The purpose of the ritual was to purify the city, but rather than using an actual king a surrogate was supplied.
In other religious myths and traditions it was important that a high-status individual sacrifice himself or herself for the community. Iphigeneia was a princess, after all. In warfare Roman generals were known to sacrifice themselves in battle in order to secure a victory. Livy describes how the Roman commander would dress in his official toga, cover his head, stand on a spear, and hold his hand against his chin as the priest pronounced a formula of devotio in which the general dedicated himself and the enemy troops to the gods of the underworld and the goddess of the earth for the benefit of Rome and her military forces.
Similarly in Christianity it is critically important (for somewhat different reasons) that the Son of God sacrifice himself for the salvation of humanity. There is, it is true, a distinction between the heroes of religious epic and those unwillingly sacrificed on more commonplace everyday altars, but there are many examples of high-status individuals dying for the group. The truth is, there were and still are different ways of viewing human sacrifice.
In the early 20th century the anthropologist Emile Durkheim wrote that religion was one of the instincts that brought us out of the cave and made us a society. For Durkheim religious rituals in general are one of the civilizing forces in our history. Even though human sacrifice is one of the darkest rituals of our collective history it nevertheless fostered communal bonds. And if Donald Trumps rallies have proven anything it is that the strong will trample the weak to acquire more power. Just be thankful that the Romans did away with it, or this election season would be even bloodier than it already is.
Like many Americans feeling fatigued by this years relentless political news cycle, Ive found myself longing for a presidential candidate who wasnt a brash political caricaturefor someone who seems motivated by something beyond the power grabs and petty squabbles.
Some people think of Theodore Roosevelt in these sorts of larger-than-life terms, but, approaching the Central Park West entrance to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, I was reminded that he also occupied and molded a sphere nobler than certain Washington circles: that of museum naturalism. Moving quickly past the outsized bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt on horseback that guards the museums front doorsthats the bullish leader we popularly associate with the 26th presidency, the one Im less interested in these daysI spent my time with the parapet wall surrounding the terrace instead. Carved into the granite there are inscriptions of the many hats TR wore: Ranchman, Scholar, Explorer, Scientist, Conservationist, Naturalist, Statesman, Author, Historian, Humanitarian, Soldier, Patriot. Roosevelt could rightly claim to have been all these things, and yet (with the sole exception of statesman), none tie a direct line to his political life.
When the American Museum of Natural History was founded, the charter was signed in the front parlor of Roosevelts boyhood home (Roosevelt Sr. was a founding trustee). But even before he witnessed this important milestone in the history of museum naturalism, TR had decided to become a naturalist. It was a conclusion he arrived at when he was only eight years old. His particular interest was in a naturalism that combined rugged outdoor adventure with nature study. This is museum naturalism, the brand of natural history that sent expeditions out into the world to shoot and collect specimens for their exhibit halls and scientific collections alike.
As a boy, Roosevelt studied taxidermy, amassing a natural history museum all his ownthe Roosevelt Museum of Natural History. While today we tend to think of him as a hard-charging big-game hunter, his early interest in guns developed out of the necessity to stock his museum. This drive to collect specimens continued, through family trips abroad and summers in Oyster Bay. Roosevelt was so dead-set on pursuing professional naturalism that he decorated his Harvard dorm room with bird specimens he stuffed himself. But in his classes there, he was disappointed to find that this intrepid kind of naturalism was no longer being taught. Even though the lack of tutelage meant he abandoned a career in museum naturalism, that passion continued to shape him throughout his lifea life that has been largely overshadowed by the fruits of his political career.
We often forget how dedicated TR was to this particular interest of his. He lamented how, as his political career advanced him from the New York State Assembly, to Governor, to the White House, he found it more and more difficult to spend time in the quiet of nature. The press wouldnt leave him alone, chasing him even into the deepest wilderness. It is significant that immediately after leaving the White House, at a time when Roosevelt could have done practically anything, he chose to lead a nearly 10 month long scientific collecting expedition in East Africa under the aegis of the Smithsonian Institution. Indeed, he spent the last weeks of his presidency engrossed in its planning; this was no mere hunting safari, despite how the popular imagination often casts it today. It was serious scientific inquiry. Critics may balk at the number of big game species he shot in all those months, but Roosevelt collected these with a full understanding of their scientific value, insisting that they be deposited in the collections of the museum for the advancement of human knowledge.
We remember Theodore Roosevelt for many things, as the epigraphs at the AMNH parapet illustrate. But the very location of these inscriptions tells us that natural history was at the core of his varied life, a biography that in his own estimation culminated in the Smithsonian African Expedition. To really understand Rooseveltor any president, reallywe need to locate him in the world that so deeply defined him. Much of Roosevelts greatness, in fact, comes from his direct and often adventurous involvement with nature.
As we enter the home stretch of primary season, we might pause to consider the multifaceted life of this one president. Much of what TR was able to accomplish was rooted in the fact that he saw himself as more than just a politicianhe was a guardian of the natural world. Although he often played the role of natures conqueror, he never lost sight of his insignificance compared to the awesome vastness of it. When was the last time we had a presidential candidate who could rightly claim to share this same perspective?
Darrin Lunde is the author of The Naturalist: Theodore Roosevelt, a Lifetime of Exploration, and the Triumph of American Natural History. He is a Supervisory Museum Specialist in the Division of Mammals at the Smithsonians National Museum of Natural History. Previously, he worked at the American Museum of Natural History, and he has led field expeditions throughout the world, collecting specimens in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Lunde has named more than a dozen new species of mammals and shed light on hundreds of others. He lives in Maryland.
Bush Center Notes
Frederick D. McClure
Spring is officially here and we are excited to offer a dynamic line-up of programs and events at the George Bush Presidential Library Center this April.
The George Bush Foundation Lecture Series by Wells Fargo
April 11, John Sununu, Chase Untermeyer and Mary Kate Cary will join us for a panel discussion about their books and film based on the life of President George H.W. Bush.
For more information, visit bush41.org/writers or call 979-862-2251.
Scowcroft Institute International Affairs Seminar on the Syrian Crisis
April 18, the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University, will host a lecture titled, "When a 'Red Line' Wasn't Much of a Red Line: The Syrian Crisis and the Failure of the UK and US to Respond Decisively." Speaking at the lecture will be Dr. Thomas Scotto, professor of government at the University of Essex, UK. The event, cosponsored by the European Union Center, will take place from 12:20 p.m. to 1:20 p.m. at the George Bush Presidential Library.
For more information and to register, go to http://bush.tamu.edu/events/
Scowcroft Legacy Conference
April 26, the Scowcroft Institute will host the Scowcroft Legacy Conference at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center. The all-day event will focus on the legacy and contributions of Brent Scowcroft, one of the most respected National Security Advisors since the position was created. The event will feature a variety of speakers including Ambassador Ryan Crocker, dean of the Bush School; Andrew Natsios, director of the Scowcroft Institute and executive professor; Dr. Stephen Hadley, former National Security Advisor; and Ambassador Robert Blackwill, retired American Diplomat.
For more information and to register, go to http://bush.tamu.edu/events/
The Adventures of Peter Rabbit
April 27, join us from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center and listen to exciting stories told by "Miss Teresa" Maurer, a talented storyteller affiliated with The Beatrix Potter Society. The stories will be about Peter Rabbit and his adventures with his famous cousin, Benjamin Bunny. An added treat will be a story about Mr. Jeremy Fisher.
Bring your camera for fun photos after the program - Peter Rabbit will be onstage too! This program is primarily for children in grades K-3, but anyone is welcome to attend.
For more information contact Monica at 979-691-4006 or visit Bush41.org.
President Bush 41 grows up to be President: Character Counts
April 27, highlights from President Bush's childhood and youth will aim to inspire students to consider how they can be active American citizens. Joining together in music, movement, and folktales "with a twist" also helps to meet several curriculum standards for grades K-3. The Bryan-College Station Library System sends us Family Literacy Librarian, Bobbee Pennington, a former elementary school teacher. She will be sharing the story: "Character Counts: President Bush Growing Up." She will also share other stories and songs she has written including: "The President's Song" (character is the key), "Millie's Song" (reading motivation), "Billy Goats Gruff" (anti-bullying), "Little Red Hen" (promoting work ethics), and "Toads & Diamonds - Texas Style" (kind words and kind deeds). This programs will be held in the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
For more information contact Monica at 979-691-4006 or visit Bush41.org.
Dallas ophthalmologist Dr. Rob Tenery has written Chasing the Ponytail ($15.95 paperback), a readable story about his coming of age in the 1950s and early '60s in Waxahachie as he pursued the love of his life, Janet Forrest, through high school and college.
Rob was almost 16 when he laid eyes on Janet -- just 14 -- at the country club swimming pool and was instantly smitten. He was about to be a high school junior, she a freshman. Their on-again, off-again courtship would eventually lead them to the altar six years later, but Rob found he had a lot of growing-up to do along the way.
The book is listed as nonfiction, though Tenery admits up front that "some of my recollections may be subject to interpretation and even embellishment." So perhaps Chasing the Ponytail falls into that nebulous category of "creative nonfiction," in which the writer -- while sticking to the larger "truth" -- might take a few liberties with the facts. And one would assume that he may have changed a few names to protect the guilty and keep from being sued.
In any case, Tenery doesn't pull any punches as he relates mischievous episodes about growing up in what was then small-town Waxahachie. Fortunately, the statute of limitations has long since expired on his various juvenile shenanigans, which landed him in jail on at least one occasion and could easily have derailed his plans to become a doctor.
In fact, during his sophomore year in college, his grades and behavior were such that the dean put him on strict academic and social probation. Rob's dad -- the town's beloved Dr. Mayo Tenery -- finally ran out of patience and issued him an ultimatum.
Fortunately, Rob got his priorities in order, earned his degree (barely), was accepted into medical school, won the girl (they've been married 52 years), and has enjoyed a fruitful career in medicine, as his father and grandfather did before him.
Tenery wrote about the three generations of doctors in his family -- and the changes in the medical profession -- in another book, Dr. Mayo's Boy: A Century of American Medicine, published in 2009. That same year the Texas Medical Association honored him with its Distinguished Service Award.
Second in series: Austin architect and author Minerva Koenig has followed up her debut novel Nine Days with a second murder mystery, South of Nowhere (MinotaurBooks, $24.99 hardcover).
Both novels are set in Texas and feature Julia Kalas, a reformed criminal put in witness protection in a small town known as the Middle of Nowhere.
In South of Nowhere, Kalas has been forced to relocate and takes on a missing persons case on the Texas-Mexico border that promises a huge payday, but soon she is tangling with Mexican drug lords and is a suspect in a murder case.
Texas Top 10: Lone Star Literary Life's second annual online ranking of the top 10 "bookish" destinations in Texas puts Austin number one, followed in order by Houston, Dallas, Abilene, Midland-Odessa, San Antonio, Fort Worth, El Paso, Denton and Waco. Read more about it at lonestarliterary.com.
Glenn Dromgoole writes about Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.
DALLAS (AP) It's springtime in Texas, which means a time-honored tradition for wildflower lovers everywhere.
You know the drill: Carefully wade into a patch of bluebonnets and squat down for a photo, but don't crush or pick them. It's against the law, right?
It's one of those urban legends that sound just Texan enough to be real. Everyone knows the Legislature has protected the state flower by making it a crime to damage it.
But don't go planning a flower-picking party just yet. It may not be illegal to destroy the state flower, but it's almost certainly bad Texas karma.
There's a number of myths about our native plants, and that's just one, said Joe Marcus, a program manager at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, who knows well how we're drawn to capture the springtime sight.
Gina Rokas, tourism director for the city of Ennis, laughs when she hears from The Dallas Morning News (http://bit.ly/1WYy4sf) the anti-picking myth. Ennis is the Official Bluebonnet City of Texas and brings in thousands of tourists for the annual Bluebonnet Trails Festival, which this year is April 15-17.
We do hear that a lot, she said, especially among folks from outside the state. It's really sweet when they ask, Can I just pick one because they're so beautiful.
This is the 65th year for the Ennis festival, Rokas said, but it's really taken off in the last 10 years since the advent of social media. Go to Ellis County during peak-bloom (best estimates say second week of April this year, Rokas said) and you'll find bumper-to-bumper traffic along the trails as people try to get their perfect portrait.
Rokas said she jokes with visitors who ask about picking the flowers, but she hopes people won't actually go through with it.
We just say if everybody's picking them, they won't go back to seed, Rokas said. It gives us an opportunity to tell them not to trespass onto private property.
Sgt. Lonny Haschel, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said that while actually picking the wildflowers isn't a crime, it's important to be safe while setting up for photos.
The grassy area near a busy highway might offer a pretty backdrop, but make sure to pull completely off the roadway before getting out for photos.
Obviously in the Metroplex, you wouldn't stop along 635 anywhere, he said. You want to make sure people are safe.
Haschel also said to avoid private property, because picking bluebonnets may not be a crime, but trespassing sure is. Parents should keep an eye out for other dangers in wildflower patches as well.
Be careful with kids, because Texas is known for bluebonnets and fire ants, Haschel said. Once you're there, scout out what's under the flowers.
Marcus suggests finding a (safe) roadside slope, where photographers can arrange the picturesque patchwork of blue and green behind their subjects without wading into the patch.
People are looking for the perfect picture, the perfect angle, and they end up destroying what they try to appreciate, Marcus said.
Our statewide obsession with these little blue wildflowers dates back over a century, Marcus said. The state legislature first considered picking a state flower in the spring of 1901, spurring fierce floor debate.
Some lawmakers considered the cotton boll, harkening back to the state's Southern, cotton plantation roots. A representative from Uvalde suggested the cactus for its hardiness and beautiful flowers, earning him the nickname Cactus Jack.
In the end, the Sandyland Bluebonnet of South Texas which blooms taller and earlier than its North Texas cousin won the honor. It wasn't until the 1970s that the legislature named all five or six species of Texas lupines as the state symbol.
Today, Marcus gets messages from all over the country from Tex-pats hoping to grow bluebonnets out-of-state. He's even gotten emails from military service members in Iraq and Afghanistan hoping to bring a little slice of Texas to the Eastern Hemisphere.
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By Erin Schmitt of The Gleaner
Kentucky Community and Technical College System has been pushing to close the achievement gap, particularly for minority students.
Henderson Community College's "Initiative: Achieve and Mentor" is a data driven program that sprang up with that idea in mind, said Bill Dixon, the college's director of diversity services. It pairs minority mentors with minority mentees.
"The key was to find ways in which we can develop a strategy to assist our minority students in closing the academic achievement gap," he said.
HCC does a good job with enrollment, but it's the second phase of retention that's critical to driving successful graduation rates. Retention is also the area most students struggle with, regardless of race or gender.
"That's where we were hoping that we could make a difference with minority students in that one area of classroom success/retention," Dixon said.
While building the IAM program, college officials perused students' records, looking at how many hours they retained, grade-point average and how long they had been enrolled.
"We have many, many successful African-American students who are doing exceptionally well," said Dixon. "There's a small percentage of students for which the mentors are helping that are somewhat below the bar."
The major concern is African-American males, he said. African-American females outnumber African-American males 3 to 1 in college.
IAM began last fall with 10 mentors. Each was assigned either one or two students to mentor.
Brandy Mason, who was recruited by Dixon to become a mentor, lauds the program.
"I feel like it's a great experience because you get to share your experience with the mentees," she said.
Mentors are encouraged to meet in person or online chats if the former isn't feasible.
"We pretty much know that for many of our students, the major impact that affects them in a negative way that may have a difficult time in them completing are those things that are outside the classroom, those personal things," Dixon said.
Mason has shared her personal experiences and study tips with her first mentee, who is working toward an associate in arts with the goal to transfer.
"I try to talk to her and tell her I'm here for her," said Mason. "If she needs to come to me with any problems, or if she needs help studying, I'm here."
When her mentee was having trouble in math, Mason suggested tutors who could help her and even offered her own services, though it's not Mason's strongest subject. Her mentee returned the favor, sharing the name of a tutor so Mason could get help in another area.
"I think this program is amazing because sometimes you do need a person to talk to," Mason said, adding that she wishes she had a mentor when she first arrived at HCC.
Leading up to her graduation from Union County High School in 2014, Masons's family kept asking her if she would be going away to college. She questioned whether she was ready.
Her father, the late Randy Mason, was a big proponent of postsecondary education. He graduated with a degree in engineering from Western Kentucky University and he encouraged his daughters to pursue college.
"My father told me before he passed away, 'No mater what, keep going to school,'" Mason said.
Since her father was ill at the time, she didn't want to move far away from home to attend college. She said she knew she would just end up dropping out to help her mom out.
As a middle schooler, Mason had attended a summer enrichment program at HCC. It left her with a positive impression of the college and was another factor in her enrollment.
She is set to graduate with an associate's in applied science degree next month. Mason is pursuing nursing, but is not sure what her next step will be. Instead, she's taking her time to weigh decisions.
"Last year around this time I lost my father, so it was really hard for me to overcome that and still pursue my career in nursing," Mason said. "I feel like that it held me back a little bit. It really hurts, but I still push myself to get through it. Right now I'm just taking my time with it to pursue the nursing career."
Mason champions HCC whenever she can since she said the college has taught her a lot and "it's leading me to be successful in life." She enjoys the small classes and friendly faculty and students.
She encouraged her mother, Erica Mason, to enroll this spring. The elder Mason is completing her basic courses with an eye toward the medical assistant/medical coding and billing program.
"I'm pushing her to do it because I know she can do it. Me and her have been through a lot with my dad," Mason said. "She's kind of been through a lot and I'm trying to uplift her."
Mason is also advising her sister, Portia Mason, a high school sophomore to enroll at HCC once she graduates from UCHS.
Dixon said the college hopes to expand the IAM program next year, including expanding the mentoring relationships to pair third-semester college students with high school seniors or juniors.
College officials have the support of Henderson County High Principal Chad Thompson, but haven't worked out the logistics of getting everyone together for mentoring sessions. Most HCC mentors are also juggling jobs and taking online classes, which makes it hard to coordinate schedules.
To become a mentor, students can contact either Dixon or his colleague, Keith Sayles, HCC's chief student officer. They can also contact any of the mentors.
Dixon can be reached at 270-831-9650 or bill.dixon@kctcs.edu. Sayles can be reached at 270-831-9789 or keith.sayles@kctcs.edu.
Photos by Mike Lawrence / The Gleaner Above: Smith Mills volunteer firemen Justin Durbin (left) and Mike Holaday attack a barn fire on U.S. 60 West in 2012. In the wake of a severe cut in revenue from the county, its volunteer fire departments are struggling to make ends meet. Below: Volunteer firefighters look over the scene of a fatal mobile home fire in Smith Mills in June 2015.
SHARE Mike Lawrence/The Gleaner Basket volunteer firefighter Tom Samson cools off with water and a wet towel after battling a house fire on Old Henderson-Spottsville Road in July 2014. In the wake of a severe cut in revenue from the county, its volunteer fire departments are struggling to make ends meet. MIKE LAWRENCE / THE GLEANER Volunteer firefighters look over the scene of a fatal mobile home fire in Smith Mills in June 2015. . In the wake of a severe cut in revenue from the county, its volunteer fire departments are struggling to make ends meet. Tom Lovett / The Gleaner Volunteer firefighters from Robards and Smith Mills were among crew that responded to a trailer fire on West Pike's Landing Road on Jan. 18 in Reed, Ky. In the wake of a severe cut in revenue from the county, its volunteer fire departments are struggling to make ends meet.
By Laura Acchiardo, laura.acchiardo@thegleaner.com
When Henderson Fiscal Court slashed spending last year, volunteer fire departments took one of the biggest hits.
"It's going to get tough as the years go along and our money gets smaller and smaller," said Josh Reynolds, assistant chief at Reed Fire Department. "We're going to have to put all of our money toward just keeping the doors open."
Ten volunteer departments and the Henderson City-County Rescue Squad serve the county all have been cut at least $8,000 by Henderson Fiscal Court.
In fiscal 2014, all departments received $20,000 from the county, but at the beginning of FY 2015, the rescue squad received $12,000, Robards and Corydon received $2,000 apiece and the rest got $6,000 apiece.
City-county rescue was allotted more because it doesn't receive the $8,250 from the state like the fire departments. The money received from the state is through the State Aid program, which is available to any volunteer fire department that meets state qualifications; however, that money can only be spent on equipment maintenance or replacement. That leaves out expenses such as insurance, fire station utilities and fuel for emergency vehicles.
Robards and Corydon were allotted less because the departments receive money from their city governments. The city of Robards donates $5,000 to the volunteer department every year, but that amount is residents' fire dues, while the city of Corydon designates money in its budget to its department.
"We've just been watching what we spend," said Bryan Coghill, volunteer fire chief at Corydon Civil Defense. "We haven't bought any new equipment that's not necessary. $2,000 doesn't even pay our insurance for the year. It's going to be tight."
Insurance for departments can vary between $5,000 to $9,000 depending on the size of each department and their Insurance Service Office rating. An ISO rating reflects the effectiveness of a department from a scale of one to 10, one being the best and 10 being the worst. But insurance is only one of the expenses with which departments have to contend.
Department costs include truck payments and repairs, updating outfitting gear and air packs, building utilities, gas for vehicles and various projects.
"You'd be surprised how much we pull out of our own pocket to pay for stuff on the rescue squad," said Bryant Woodard, chief of city-county rescue. "Instead of trying to get a check or putting in a purchase order, someone might just pay for it out of pocket."
Every year all departments must test their vehicles and hoses to ensure they operate efficiently. These tests can run around $1,200. Gas alone can cost a department $1,500 a year. As pumpers and brush trucks become older, more repairs are needed. The Rescue Squad had repairs on a pumper with an oil leak which cost $2,000. The vehicle has cost the department roughly $3,000 this year alone.
"With the aging fleet that we have, the one thing we're faced with is the unexpected repairs on vehicles," Woodard said.
Reed VFD owes $50,000 on one of its vehicles, but the county has allowed the department to start payments next year rather than this year, according to Reynolds. Corydon currently has a pumper down, waiting for parts. The newest vehicle at its department is from 1995, and a newer used pumper could cost about $150,000, according to Bryan Coghill.
"We're wanting to put more money back to replace the older trucks," he said, "so they're not costing us so much in repairs."
Different stations are in need of updates and projects that have been put on hold since the cut, too. City-county rescue has no kitchen or bathroom at its station. It also needs another overhead door so vehicles can get out quicker in an emergency. Currently, vehicles are parked behind one another. Smith Mills is in need of showers and the station doesn't have a telephone.
According to National Fire Protection Association standards, outfitting gear should be no more than 10 years old. Gear at volunteer stations such as city-county rescue and Reed are pushing that 10-year limit. To outfit each volunteer firefighter, the jacket and pants cost $2,500, not including gloves, boots or radio. According to Reynolds, he has bought boots and gloves for himself when Reed has struggled with money.
If volunteer firefighters see more years like this one, departments will face bigger issues. With fuel costs climbing, departments may reduce their runs to save money.
"We may have to pick and choose what runs we go on," said Mike Coghill, volunteer fire chief for Smith Mills and Bryan Coghill's father. "It may get to that point, whether we're going to choose when we're going to fire up these trucks and get eight miles to the gallon."
If repairs for vehicles are too expensive, departments may start parking trucks, stop insuring some vehicles and sell equipment if the budget doesn't increase. Some departments may have to close their doors permanently if the trend continues, and if one department folds, that puts more of a financial burden on the remaining volunteer stations.
Volunteer fire departments are not only low on funds but low on people. "You have to page the whole county to get enough people to fight a fire," said David Denton, chief at Robards Fire Department.
Spottsville and Reed have between six to eight people who can respond to a run. With so few people, that puts volunteer firefighters in danger when responding to an emergency, Reynolds said, and those who are volunteering are getting older with fewer young people joining.
"If we got a call for Smith Mills or Corydon right now, I would be the youngest one responding and I'm 64 years old," Mike Coghill said.
Though these departments need volunteers, it requires money to outfit new members money some departments don't have.
"We'd love to have new people come in," Reynolds said. "But we're almost to the point that we can't afford to have any new members come on our department because we can't put them in gear. We need the people, but we can't afford them."
To raise money, departments send out donation letters or knock on doors of those in their districts, but most departments are lucky to see a return rate of more than 35 percent, according to Glenn Powell, president of the volunteer fire chiefs association.
"People need to start responding to these donation letters and start donating to their departments," said Mike Coghill. "Otherwise things are going to get tougher. People don't realize in this county for years they've gotten by without paying for fire protection. Something is going to have to happen to get funding back into the fire departments."
To lower insurance rates, a few fire departments including Niagara and Zion brought their ISO rating down to sixes.
"We're trying to step up for the public," Powell said, "but they are not stepping up by increasing their dues and donations dollar-wise or percentage-wise."
How ever badly the volunteer departments need money, some departments said they wanted to serve the community without putting too much of a financial strain on their districts.
"The Reed community really does come out and support the fire department," Reynolds said. "Our dues are only $25 and we don't like going above. Even though we need the money, we don't want to be a burden on the people."
Departments hold different fundraisers to supplement their budgets as well. Niagara sells pork chop meals in April, while Zion hosts Easter Eggstravaganza every year. Corydon participates in Tri-Fest to help raise money for the department and Reed holds a chili supper in November.
According to Bryan Coghill, residents have asked why the departments don't organize more fundraisers, but everyone who works for the department is a volunteer. Many of them have full-time jobs and families, so it's difficult to find time to organize more fundraisers than they already do.
Departments also apply for grants through the federal government. Grants such as the Assistance to Firefighters grant or Kentucky Division of Forestry grant help cover the expenses of new equipment; however, depending on the grant, departments have to pay a certain percentage.
"Anything that we can get through a grant we're trying to get our hands on," Bryan Coghill said.
To alleviate the strain put on the fire departments and the county, Powell, on behalf of the volunteer fire departments, presented a solution to the county magistrates and the late Judge-executive Hugh McCormick, proposing that fire dues be included on county taxes.
Depending on businesses and the number of residents in their district, each department would collect a certain amount of money from the tax, while a certain percentage from each department would go toward city-county rescue. Departments would have received between $62,589 and $21,458 with the total amount from the tax equaling $457,000. Fiscal court, however, rejected the proposal.
"It's going to be unpopular," Mike Coghill said. "I don't like to pay taxes, but sometimes it's a necessary evil if you want the service."
"It's disheartening to see how well off other volunteer fire departments are doing in other counties," Reynolds said. "Other counties in Kentucky have got everything in place from the dues on the taxes."
Several counties in Kentucky already include fire dues with county taxes such as Christian, Daviess and Marshall counties, but Powell says he won't propose it again until after the November election for judge-executive.
"I had gone as far as I could go without being a bad guy with the judge," Powell said. "You can beg and you can plead, but you can only do so much because he could only do so much."
Volunteer departments hope to see part of the 1 percent occupational tax to help with funding. Magistrates are confident departments are going to receive more money before the year is out.
"I know there are additional funds," said County Magistrate George Warren. "We're waiting for revenues from the payroll tax, and I would hope that in May we could send additional money out. I feel confident additional money is coming their way."
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Doug Schuessler, Henderson
Whoa, there, Dr. Buckmaster, you are putting words in my mouth. In your recent article, you said, "Mr. Doug Schuessler wrote to me as an advocate for more state money for free college. He raise some interesting points." You have a few grammatical errors in the sentence.
1. I didn't write to you. I merely responded to your opinion in the Gleaner.
2. Your words sound as if you might be the advocate instead of me.
3. In my original letter, I merely stated that a free community college tuition proposal should be put on the table.
As far as your stating that excess funds could be wrung from many state budgets, including education, I totally agree. I come from the old school that believes we don't need multimillion-dollar school facilities to educate our children. We need a small administration, a comfortable but not lavish facility, dedicated teachers with the freedom to teach, and willing students. I also believe we need more public trade schools to accommodate those students who are not academically inclined. There actually are a lot of students who do not need to know pie are square. Most everybody already knows pie are round. Cornbread are square.
A community college associate degree offers another step up for students who come from low-medium and impoverished backgrounds. For over 100 years, our free education policy enabled the United States to rise to its prominence. For many jobs, a high school diploma is now not enough.
As far as your stating some college students who were given grants have an attitude, let me remind you attendance to a college class is not mandatory. If a student is disruptive, there are means of removing the student. Professional instructors, however, should know how to handle impertinent questions which could actually lead to an edifying discussion.
I have a final request. When you called Bernie Sanders "Lil Bernie," that didn't become you. Don't fall into the sewer with Trump, Cruz, Rubio, and Limbaugh who degrade their opponents by calling them names.
Let's keep the discourse civil. Everyone lighten up. It's only just politics.
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Frank O'Nan, Henderson
After recently listening to Ted Cruz speak, I can see why Donald Trump calls him "Lying Ted Cruz." Even a "con man" and "bully" like Mr. Trump recognizes that his Republican opponent is a "pathological liar."
To quote Sen. Cruz: "Democrats have ruined New York because fracking has been outlawed in New York State." Isn't it well-known that the "Wall Street Crash" caused by banking policies of President and fellow Texan George W. Bush caused America and New York to "go into the ditch." Those policies caused people to lose money, automobiles and homes.
Of course fracking, which has ruined ground water in many areas and has further enriched Republican supporters and leading U.S. frackers the Koch brothers, would be approved by the most radical U.S. Senator, Ted Cruz. Cruz is a man who labored to shut down the U.S. government. It also has been mentioned that "Lying Ted" was one of the Texans who wanted Texas to secede from the Union.
It seems Mr. Trump, much as I disapprove of his fear tactics, is on the money branding Ted as "Lying Ted Cruz."
Those two should be concerned with environmental concerns that threaten the very existence of mankind.
HARTFORD -- Hillary Clinton's campaign says that it began airing television commercials in Hartford and New Haven on Saturday, the latest evidence that Connecticut remains in play in her race with the surging Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Sanders, meanwhile, has bought time on at least one Connecticut station, with the commercials to begin airing Monday, according to a filing with the Federal Communications Commission.
Clinton, a frontrunner who has seen the protest candidacy of Sanders grow into a bonafide challenge, already is airing commercials on New York television, which spills into Fairfield County. "New World," the spot going up, presents Clinton as ready to be president. It makes no mention of Sanders.
"The world a president has to grapple with, sometimes you can't even imagine. That's the job, and she's the one who's proven she can get it done," the narrator says over footage of her at the White House, exiting Air Force One and sitting down with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. "The presidency is the toughest job in the world, and she is the one who will make a real difference for you."
Sanders campaign will air 140 commercials on WTIC, the Fox affiliate in Hartford, at a cost of $33,630, according to the station's filing with the FCC. An industry source says the campaign has purchased time at other stations.
The Sanders' campaign has not released a copy of the ad it intends to air in Connecticut. A campaign spokesman declined comment on its media plans.
Stations are required to file details on political ad buys with the FCC. WTIC is the only Connecticut station with a public notice on the FCC web site regarding an ad purchase Friday night. It also lists a preliminary purchase order from the Clinton campaign, though no details. WVIT, the NBC affiliate, reported an inquiry from Clinton on rates.
Sanders is on a winning streak, defeating Clinton in five of six contests since March 22, including the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday.
The New York primary is next week, followed by the five eastern states holding primaries on April 26: Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
Clinton lost to Barack Obama in the Connecticut primary in 2008. Fifty-five delegates will be apportioned based on the results here. The state also has 16 superdelegates not bound by the primary. All but one is believed to be supporting Clinton.
This story originally appeared at CTMirror.org, the website of The Connecticut Mirror, an independent, nonprofit news organization covering government, politics and public policy in the state.
Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin and the city's labor unions, its council and its legislative delegation took steps Thursday toward defusing a fight that threatened to politically isolate the new mayor as he tries to keep Connecticut's capital city out of bankruptcy.
In a press conference at the State Capitol, union leaders stood with legislators and council leaders to say they could deliver between $8 million and $12 million in concessions, an olive branch to a mayor they decisively stopped from obtaining sweeping new authority to impose taxes and remake labor contracts.
"I want to thank the unions for that firm commitment. Today is a good day, but a tough day," said Rep. Matt Ritter, D-Hartford. "I want to thank the mayor for bringing forth into light some of the difficult decisions he has to make."
Bronin responded with his own upbeat news conference at City Hall, ignoring the awkward optics of state legislators and council leaders standing with union leaders, publicly urging the mayor to take a more conciliatory approach.
"I take that as a good-faith first step," Bronin said. "We're going to have some very tough decisions and some very tough negotiations still ahead, but I take our labor leaders at their word that they are willing and ready to make real, substantial concessions as a part of an overall effort to get the city of Hartford on the path to recovery."
With deficits that are projected to hit $48.5 million in 2017, $69 million in 2018 and $88 million in 2019, Bronin says he will need to obtain more than $12 million in concessions and will still have to shrink the workforce through layoffs.
The city has a budget of $533 million, including $284 million for schools. Its authorized non-education workforce for 2016 is 1,429 full-time positions, including 452 police officers and 356 firefighters.
"Even the deepest cuts, and even very substantial concessions, don't get us over the deficits we face in the years ahead," Bronin said.
None of the union leaders at the press conference said concessions were reliant on a no-layoff pledge. The presidents of the police and fire unions, Rich Holton and Vince Fusco, said no one was challenging the existence of a fiscal crisis.
"We did not create the problems afflicting our great city, but we fully intend to be part of the solution," said Shellye Davis, a school paraprofessional and president of the Greater Hartford Labor Council.
Bronin, 36, a Rhodes Scholar and former legal adviser to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, took over as mayor of Hartford, an impoverished city that serves as capital of the richest state in the U.S., on New Year's Day. He defeated Pedro Segarra, the incumbent, in a Democratic primary.
In his first weeks in office, Bronin said that previous administrations has obscured a structural financial crisis by refinancing the city's debt and using one-time revenues, such as the sale of a city garage, to balance the budget.
His solution was to ask the General Assembly for unprecedented powers: Under the auspices of a new Hartford Financial Sustainability Commission, he could renegotiate labor deals and impose taxes on tax-exempt institutions.
Hartford Hospital, Trinity College, the University of Hartford and major non-profits objected to the new taxing authority, while labor leaders complained that Bronin was acting precipitously in seeking to free the city of its labor commitments.
"In less than the 90 days in office, Mayor Bronin has decided to use his time pushing this legislation instead of bringing everyone to the table where they could figure this out together," Lori Pelletier, the head of the Connecticut AFL-CIO, said in testimony submitted to the legislature. "Mr. Bronin's strategy provides an interesting insight to his views on workers and their representatives, and that is it's his way or the highway."
The only applause came from the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, which saw the proposal as a wedge that could help other struggling cities narrow the long list of property exempt from the only tax municipalities can impose: the property tax.
But Bronin soon found himself alone, potentially eroding his influence at the outset of what is likely to be a difficult four-year term. The city's delegation to the General Assembly refused to push the mayor's bill, and the City Council voted 8-1 on Monday to reject a resolution supporting it.
On Thursday, the measure died from inaction in the legislature's Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee when the panel declined to take it up at the last meeting before its deadline for reporting out legislation.
Bronin declined to say the legislation was a mistake.
"Look, I think the legislation helped shine a light on the crisis that we face, and I think it created some conversations that might not otherwise have been had," Bronin said.
He left little doubt he would be back at the General Assembly next year looking to define the state's financial relationship with its cities, particularly its capital city, where half the property is tax exempt. With a high tax rate, a stagnant tax base, the nation's second smallest percentage of home ownership and the state's highest poverty rate, Hartford cannot afford to raise taxes, he said.
"Our mill rate right now is 74. In New Haven and in Bridgeport, it's down in the low 40s. I don't believe we can do an across-the-board mill rate increase without killing the city," Bronin said. "It might happen quickly. It might happen slowly. But if we continue to raise the burden on our small businesses and our mid-sized employers, we're going to see more and more of them shut down, shutter their doors and leave town. And we cannot afford to do that to the city of Hartford."
This story originally appeared at CTMirror.org, the website of The Connecticut Mirror, an independent, nonprofit news organization covering government, politics and public policy in the state.
BEIRUT -- The Islamic State group has released most of the 300 cement workers it abducted near Damascus after questioning them to find out who were Muslims and killing four who were members of the minority Druze sect, a Syrian opposition monitoring group and a news agency linked to the extremists reported Saturday.
The reports came two days after IS abducted the cement workers and contractors from al-Badia Cement Company in Dumeir, just northeast of the capital, after a surprise attack on government forces.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said all those abducted have been released except for 30 people who were guards at the cement factory. It said the fate of the 30 is unknown.
The IS-affiliated Aamaq news agency said most of the 300 were released after questioning to determine their religion and whether they support the government. It said four workers who belonged to the minority Druze sect were killed and 20 pro-government gunmen are still being held.
The Druze, a 10th century offshoot of Shiite Islam, made up about 5 percent of Syria's pre-war population of 23 million people. Lebanon and Israel also have large Druze communities.
IS, a Sunni Muslim extremist group, considers all Shiites to be heretics deserving death.
Aamaq also released a video from inside the cement plant, about 28 miles (45 kilometers) northeast of Damascus, showing trucks and bulldozers in the sprawling facility. Some fighters could be seen inside.
Government forces and insurgents meanwhile clashed near Handarat, just north of the northern city of Aleppo, Syria's largest, activists said.
In the western part of Aleppo province, troops backed by Lebanon's Hezbollah fighters battled militants in Khan Touman and al-Ais, where insurgents last week killed more than two dozen Lebanese militants and government forces, according to activists and state media.
Elsewhere in northern Syria, a mine left behind by IS near the Kurdish town of Kobani killed at least four children and wounded several others late Friday. The Observatory said four children were killed and six wounded when the mine exploded in the village of Darb Hassan. State news agency SANA said six children were killed.
Kobani-based Kurdish official Idriss Naasan told The Associated Press that the children were shepherds who took their sheep and goats to graze in Darb Hassan on Friday. When they opened the door to a house, the mine exploded, killing four children and wounding the rest. He added that one is believed to have died of his wounds later.
Also in Syria's north, a senior official with al-Qaida's local branch appeared in a video during which he denied reports by state media that he was killed in the northwestern province of Idlib. The Observatory also reported that Sheikh Abdullah al-Mheisny was not harmed.
"I will remain a thorn in your throat and my happiest day will be when I get martyred," al-Mheisny said in the video. The militant was wounded by a Russian airstrike in December in Latakia province.
A Saudi citizen, al-Mheisny had been fighting in northern Syria for months, serving both as a senior religious and military commander with the al-Qaida branch, known as the Nusra Front.
Several top Nusra Front commanders have been recently killed in Syria by U.S. airstrikes.
NORWALK -- When David Hay was appointed principal of Brookside Elementary School in 2003, it was the second wind of his career in education.
At the time, he had just retired as an educator in Massachusetts after 34 years, but he wasn't quite ready to stop working.
"I have a skill and I thought, 'Why not take advantage of that skill?' My wife was very willing to move. She wanted to be near the ocean and I started to apply for jobs along the Rhode Island and Connecticut coasts," he said.
He received two offers and accepted a position as principal of Brookside Elementary School. After 47 years in education, including the last 13 at Brookside, Hay will retire in June.
As a youth in the rural town of Ashby, Mass., Hay was destined for a career as an educator.
"Growing up, I was the babysitter. I did the summer camps with kids. I was always someone who was interested in helping young children as a young person and I made the decision to become a history teacher," he said.
After receiving some advice from a college professor, he decided to go into elementary education since there were more jobs available in that field.
"I was a fifth and sixth grade teacher for 17 years and kind of got forced into administration by a wonderful principal, Bob Salvatelli," Hay recalls. "I went kicking. I didn't want to leave the classroom because I love the classroom."
Hay's first administrative position was as an assistant principal in the Leominster, Mass. public school system. He later accepted his first principalship at an elementary school in Baldwinville, Mass. before returning to Leominster to serve as principal of Fall Brook School.
After five years at Fall Brook, he reached retirement age in the Massachusetts school system. Hay and his wife, Linda, relocated to Norwalk as he became principal of Brookside. The couple purchased a home minutes away from the school on Rampart Road.
"Brookside, in 2003, was under construction for the third year. Its reputation wasn't very good. Test scores weren't very high," he said.
"If I have one skill, it's improving schools. I saw it as a great challenge but it was a doable challenge. We succeeded pretty well and we've done a nice job over the last 13 years. I'm proud of the fact that where we are today is much better than where we were in 2003. We have a much better reputation now and I'm proud at what our staff has done. They worked hard at it," said Hay.
Among Hay's proudest accomplishments at Brookside are the additions of preschool classrooms.
"We talk a lot about the achievement gap but the gap doesn't happen in junior high, it happens in two year-olds and three year-olds," he said.
"I thought if we could get the kids young enough, we could change a lot of those things that happened when they came in as five year-olds and didn't know the alphabet or numbers."
"We had to raise the bar," he adds. "You don't teach at the bottom, you teach at the top and all the students rise to that. That also includes behavior. If you set high expectations, the kids rise to those expectations."
Hay and his wife enjoyed their new life in Norwalk, taking advantage of the city's attractions such as Sheffield Island and Maritime Aquarium along with the occasional Broadway show in New York City.
"It was a fabulous time for us," said Hay.
After seven years in Norwalk, tragedy struck back home in Massachusetts when his son Aaron died of a drug overdose. He was 35.
"A lot of families are living this terrible tragedy. Aaron worked extremely hard everyday of his life to not be on drugs and it basically caught him," said Hay. "We all have faults but his fault was deadly. We miss him greatly."
With children and grandchildren in Massachusetts, Hay said his wife felt a need to be closer to the family. The couple moved back to Massachusetts. Hay got an apartment in Norwalk and continued working at Brookside. For the last six years, he spent his weekdays in Norwalk and drives back to Massachusetts on weekends.
As he nears retirement, Hay is looking forward to spending more time with his grandkids. Hay has a blog, where he chronicles his childhood and experiences in education (haydavid.blogspot.com). He plans to spend more time writing and volunteering when he retires.
His current home in Massachusetts is within in walking distance of his alma mater, Fitchburg State University, where he received bachelor's and master's degrees in elementary education.
As he leaves Norwalk, the students are what Hay will miss the most.
"Teaching is a tough profession but it's a profession that you can enjoy every day of your life. I never had a day where I said, 'I don't want to go to work.' In fact, I've never gone to work. I've only gone to school my whole life. It's been 63 years of going to school, in terms of school, college and work," he said.
Recently there has been much discussion about the need for municipal and state workers to face the new reality of current budgetary constraints. As a Hartford taxpayer, I recognize that current labor agreements are not sustainable, and a failure to restructure health and pension benefits could lead to bankruptcy and an even harsher reality. But in fairness, I also feel there is a need for a more honest and holistic discussion of this new economic reality.
The Economist magazine recently highlighted that business profits are at record high levels. Meanwhile, the labor share of income has dropped from 65 percent to 56 percent [2], and would have been even more extreme if not for the increased income of the top 1 percent of workers.
Sadly, political candidates have preferred to play off the economic insecurities faced by the other 99 percent with a focus on the emotional hot buttons of globalization and immigration. While these do contribute to constraining wage income, the real challenge faced today is technology. A study conducted by McKinsey & Company suggested that 45 percent of activities individuals are paid to perform could be automated with currently available technology (including 20 percent of what CEOs do!) This represents an additional $2 trillion of labor income that could be transferred to capital.
The financial challenges faced by state and local governments in Connectict today are further aggravated by a crumbling infrastructure that undermines the competitiveness of businesses and imposes high social costs, particularly on the most needy. The current political climate clouds any meaningful discussion with slogans of intrusive government regulations, burdensome taxes and bureaucratic inefficiency.
The solution is to cut taxes, streamline regulations, and provide subsidies to attract business investment. The new reality is that business spending on lobbying has doubled over the period 1997 to 2013 as many industry sectors -- health care, insurance, credit cards, telecoms, and pharmaceuticals -- consolidated and created a rule book that favored incumbents.
The new reality is that business has not invested in the public infrastructure that underpins their current record profits. Free cash flow is so high that companies were sitting on $800 billion after capital investment. Too often this excess capital is simply used to buy back shares to prop up earnings per share metrics used to justify incentive compensation.
Labor does need to agree to come back to the table to restructure agreements that are simply too expensive in this new reality. But business also needs to come to the table to restructure the social contract for their license to operate. And politicians need to focus less on campaign slogans and more on the hard work and difficult choices of governing.
Further concentration of the wealth, whether in corporate accounts or payouts to shareholders is not in the best interest of business, consumers or politicians. Extreme wealth concentration will depress economic demand and private investment, limiting future growth needed to help balance budgets and threatening social cohesion.
Infrastructure investment has been shown to create local jobs, reduce environment impacts, and contribute to long- term economic vitality. Connecticut needs infrastructure investment. Studies have indicated potential returns on investment for various infrastructure projects of 8 to 14 percent.
Connecticut has an aging population of rather well off retirees looking for places to park their retirement savings. It may be unrealistic to ask politicians tied to two- year election cycles to make decisions having 25- to 50-year impacts, but other countries are partnering with pension funds that specialize in the financing and management of infrastructure projects.
Technology will advance, and capitalism will drive further efficiencies that suggest the new reality will not generate sufficient labor income to fund livable wages. But a more inclusive form of capitalism that promotes capital investment in critical infrastructure systems -- communications, transportation, energy, and education -- can generate sufficient wealth for sustainable livelihoods. The new reality can be ugly and divisive, or it can be an innovative and inclusive approach to building a better Connecticut.
Thomas Swarr lives in Hartford and is a Yale University lecturer.
Like many other hospitals, CHI Health St. Francis is having trouble finding enough nurses. In order to increase the nursing supply, the Grand Island hospital decided to grow their own.
CHI St. Francis was already offering tuition reimbursements to current employees who want to go back to school to get their bachelors degrees.
Beth Bartlett, vice president for patient care services, figured, Why dont we spend our money in a different way?
In creating the new program, the hospital decided to spend the same amount of money and see if we can go find some high school students who might be interested in a health care career, she said.
Grow Our Own is the name of the program, which is a partnership between CHI St. Francis, Central Community College and Career Pathways Institute.
CHI St. Francis hopes the program will benefit the Grand Island hospital and help create an interest in nursing.
Under the program, CHI St. Francis will pay CCC tuition and fees for high school students interested in a health care career. In return, the students agree to work for St. Francis for three years.
As part of the arrangement, CCC will hold five seats each year for future St. Francis nurses, Bartlett said. The deal also calls for CHI St. Francis to help CPI with its HOSA program. HOSA was formerly known as Health Occupations Students of America.
The first five students in the program were selected recently. That group consists of three sophomores and two juniors at Grand Island Senior High.
One of the girls, Crystal Chavez Saquiche, loves the program. Its amazing, she said, adding that it will help with her tuition a great deal.
Saquiche, a sophomore, is planning to become a pediatric nurse because she loves kids. After she gets her associate degree, she plans to work at CHI St. Francis and go on to earn at least her bachelors degree.
Saquiche, who has lived in Grand Island almost six years, plans to stay in the city because I want to be with my family, she said.
Creating a path
In taking part, CCC is trying to create an affordable education path for students who are interested in the colleges associate degree in nursing (ADN) program, said Jamey Peterson-Jones, early college director at CCC.
CCC is helping in the programs promotion and serving in a supportive role, she said. CCC looks at Growing Our Own as a pilot program.
The first five students in the program will start working toward their ADN in their junior and senior years of high school, beginning this fall. Some dual credit classes are taught at GISH by CCC instructors.
CCC will help the students make sure they take the required courses before they actually begin college. With that assistance, they can get into the nursing program without having to wait.
The students will each have a mentor at CHI Health St. Francis. They will also be encouraged to work as nursing assistants while going to school.
CHI Health will pay for the tuition and fees associated with the degree, which requires 72 college credits. A credit hour costs $94.
For each student, CHI Health St. Francis will cover $6,768 in tuition and fees. Bartlett is hopeful that related expenses will also be covered.
Bartlett is pleased that the initial batch of applicants reflected the ethnic diversity of Grand Island. One hope is to bring in more bilingual nurses, she said.
The program began with students at Grand Island Senior High but could expand to other high schools if things go well, Bartlett said.
Dan Phillips, coordinator of CPI, thinks the new program is going to be phenomenal.
At the same time students apply to CPI, they can also be considered for the CHI nursing sponsorship. CPI administrators check to make sure the applicants are in good standing from a grade, behavior and attendance standpoint.
Supply ebbs and flows
The supply of nurses ebbs and flows, Bartlett said. But for many hospitals, the trend is not good.
By 2020, experts predict the country will have a shortage of 1 to 1.1 million nurses, she said.
Hospitals in Omaha and Lincoln initially avoided the problem. For awhile, St. Francis was frustrated when young nurses from the eastern part of the state worked in Grand Island for a year to get their experience and then headed back east.
Factors in the nursing shortage are the Affordable Care Act and the fact that the large population of baby boomers will be needing more medical care.
Its not that people dont want to go into nursing, Bartlett said. A big issue is that nursing instructors are aging, and not enough people are coming on board to replace them, she said.
Another issue is that most nursing programs now graduate one class a year, rather than two.
So a batch of new students interviews and applies for jobs only once a year. Other than that, the only real hope for hiring nurses are those moving from one location to another, Bartlett said.
Many hospitals, including CHI St. Francis, encourage their current employees to go back to school for their bachelors degrees.
St. Francis has a contract with the Methodist Hospital in Omaha that provides a decreased tuition price for employees who want their bachelors degree. St. Francis helps reimburse employees for their tuition.
The Grand Island hospital increased the starting wage for nurses by $2.50 an hour several months ago. If people agree to work at the hospital for several years, St. Francis will help them with their student loans. In addition, current employees are given $1,000 if they help the hospital recruit a registered nurse.
Bartlett is a big believer in bachelors degrees for nurses. If you look at changes in technology and the critical thinking necessary for very, very sick patients, nurses need to be well-prepared, she said.
Critical thinking, ability and leadership are vital in knowing how to lead a group of patients and work with physicians, Bartlett said.
Staffing concerns
Other area hospitals also have staffing concerns.
Memorial Community Health in Aurora has a couple of positions open in long-term care and a couple more in the hospital. And we dont see a lot of applications come in, said Human Resources Director Laura Teichmeier.
Demand goes in waves, Teichmeier said. A month or two ago, the hospital didnt have any openings. But recently, a few people decided to move on or move out of state, she said.
Mary Lanning Healthcare in Hastings is definitely short of nurses. We have over 20 openings right now, said Human Resources Director Sharon Hayek. Those nurses are needed in our in-patient units as well as our clinics, she said.
Mary Lanning employs 300 nurses. The need has been critical for about six months. We have a lot of nurses who are working extra shifts to help cover for that, Hayek said.
Finding enough nurses has been a challenge since Kearney Regional Medical Center opened.
Weve filled some needs in certain areas, but overall were constantly recruiting for nurses, said Human Resources Director Steve Beck.
If the Grow Our Own program is a success, Bartlett said, The real winners are our patients.
Monet rahapelien ystavat ovat viime vuosina loytaneet netticasinot ja olleet ihmeissaan. Verrattuna kotimaisen Veikkauksen kivijalkarahapeleihin puhutaan aivan eri tason palautusprosenteista ja lisaksi pelaaminen on aarimmaisen helppoa ja turvallista. Netticasinoiden maara on tana paivana todella suuri ja niita loytyy jokaiseen lahtoon, suurin ongelma aloittelevalla pelaajalla onkin tehda valinta siita, minka netticasinon valitsee. Kaikkien netticasinoiden mainospuheet naet lupaavat kauniita asioita ja niiden lapinakeminen on tietysti tarkeaa. Nyrkkisaantona voidaan kuitenkin jo kattelyssa todeta, etta jos valitsemasi netticasino on lisensoitu ETA-alueella, sen kanssa ei tule olemaan ongelmia, ellei niita itse jarjesta. Kay tutustumassa parhaisiin netticasinoihin osoitteessa www.ilmaiskierroksia.info!
Ensimmainen nyrkkisaanto on siis varmistaa, etta valitsemallasi netticasinolla on ETA-alueen lisenssi. Suurimmassa osassa tapauksista se on Maltan eli MGA:n lisenssi. Myos Viron, Englannin ja Gibraltarin lisensseja nakyy ja naissa valvonta on jopa Maltaa tiukempaa. Lopputulema on kuitenkin se, etta ETA-alueen lisenssi takaa suomalaisille verovapaat voitot seka sen, etta niita valvotaan kontrolloidusti. Maailmalla on iso nippu Curacaon lisenssilla toimivia netticasinoita ja niistakin suurin osa on laadukkaita. Ne eivat kuitenkaan ole suomalaisille asiakkaille verovapaita, joten emme suosittele niita.
Tana paivana markkinoille on ilmaantunut paljon ETA-alueella toimiva netticasinoita ilman rekisteroitymista. Jos tarkoitus on vain pelata yksittaisia pelikertoja, on varsin helppo suositella naita. Netticasinot ilman rekisteroitymista tarjoavat palvelun tunnistautumisen verkkopankin avainlukulistan avulla ja saman palvelun kautta tapahtuvat talletukset ja mahdolliset voittojen nostot silmanrapayksessa. Normaaleihin netticasinoihin pitaa asiakkaan rekisteroitya, tehda talletukset ja tunnistautua dokumenttien avulla. Tama on lisenssiehtojen mukainen kaytanto, eika kovinkaan monimutkainen, mutta silti monet asiakkaat haluavat yksinkertaista ja nopeaa palvelua. Toki normaalit netticasinot tarjoavat usein asiakkailleen laadukkaita talletusbonuksia ja erilaisia kampanjoita, joten kannattaa tarkkaan punnita, kumman ratkaisun valitsee. Kannattaa myos muistaa, etta tunnistautuminen tehdaan vain kerran, joten mikaan jatkuva riippakivi se ei ole.
Suomalaiset asiakkaat ovat netticasinoille tarkeita, joten kaikilla vahankin laadukkailla netticasinoilla on suomenkieliset sivut seka suomenkielinen asiakaspalvelu suomenkielisyys kannattaakin ottaa netticasinoa valittaessa nyrkkisaannoksi. Vaikka tana paivana englanninkielisyys on harvoille ongelma, on suomenkielisten netticasinoiden maara niin valtava, etta suosittelemme niiden kayttoa. Rahansiirrot ovat tana paivana niin hyvassa mallissa, etta niiden kanssa tuskin tulee mitaan ongelmia. Kolme tarkeinta segmenttia: Suomalaiset verkkopankit, luottokortit (Visa, Mastercard) seka nettilompakot (Skrill, Neteller) loytyvat jokaisesta laadukkaasta netticasinosta. Viime vuosien trendiksi noussut verkkokauppa on kehittanyt rahansiirrot niin laadukkaiksi ja nopeiksi, etta niiden suhteen ei ole enaa vuosiin ollut ongelmia. Luonnollisesti netticasinot kayttavat naita samoja palveluita ja hyotyvat kehityksesta.
Naiden isojen linjojen jalkeen netticasinon valintaan vaikuttavat luonnollisesti tarjottavat tervetuliaisbonukset uudet asiakkaat saavat tana paivana kovan kilpailun myota merkittavia etuja netticasinoilta ja niita kannattaa luonnollisesti vertailla. Erilaiset talletusbonukset, ilmaiskierrokset seka ilmaiset pelirahat tuovat suuriakin rahanarvoisia etuja ja niiden vertailu on ehdottomasti kannattavaa. Myoskaan useampien tilien avaaminen ja tervetuliaistarjousten kayttaminen ei missaan nimessa ole huono idea.
Kun edella mainitut asiat ovat mieleisia ja vaihtoehtoja on vielakin jaljella, mennaan jo nyansseihin. Toki pelivalikoima on yksi kriteeri, mutta taman paivan netticasinoissa tamakin asia on paasaantoisesti varsin samanlainen. Toki useamman samantasoisen netticasinon vertailussa kannattaa yleensa valita se, jossa on eniten peleja tarjolla. Vaikka omat suosikit loytyisivatkin useammasta, voi tulevaisuudessa mielenkiinto nousta joihinkin muihin peleihin ja silloin on tietysti mukavampaa, etta ne loytyvat valikoimista. Viimeisena voidaan nostaa esiin kaytettavyys joidenkin netticasinoiden sivut ovat vilkkuvia, valkkyvia ja epakaytannollisia. Omaan silmaan ja kaytettavyyteen sopiva sivusto on luonnollisesti aina se paras valinta. Tarjonta netticasinoissa on tana paivana valtava ja jokaiselle loytyy varmasti se oma netticasino onnea matkaan!
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Linkedin Dan Perry (Associated Press) Cairo Sun, April 10, 2016
A new-old idea is rattling around the Middle East five years after the Arab Spring stirred democratic ambition: that restoring stability, especially if accompanied by some economic and political improvements, should be reform enough for the moment.
This discourse appears to be taking front and center these days, most obviously in Egypt the region's most populous country and the one that raised the highest hopes for democracy advocates when the military in 2011 removed longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak as millions rallied against him and his Western support collapsed.
The current government is aggrieved to find itself facing possibly harsher international criticism than Mubarak ever did, mostly over questions of human rights. It argues that democracy does not require tolerance of chaos in the streets, and that unfettered freedoms can destabilize a brittle society facing illiteracy, poverty, weak democratic traditions and a jihadi insurgency.
In meetings with U.S. Congressional delegations this week, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi argued that "democracy is an ongoing process and cannot be realized overnight," elaborating that Egypt is committed to "striking the balance between enhancing security and stability and upholding rights and freedoms," according to a statement from his office.
The idea has a philosophical foundation: just as democracy is about more than elections and cannot allow an unbridled dictatorship of the majority, so must freedom not be allowed to become anarchy.
Critics dismiss such talk as self-serving, a conflating of criticism and sedition typical of elites trying to hang on to privilege. But the go-slow approach does find quiet defenders not only among the wealthy and connected who benefit, but also among educated people who simply don't fully trust the masses at the moment.
How much is hard to accurately gauge in a region where pundits are muzzled in ways both subtle and overt and where polling is rarely conducted. So claims about it tend toward anecdote, experience and logic.
"People value stability more than anything else," said Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, a professor of political science at United Arab Emirates University. He said the instability and rise of political Islam following the Arab Spring slowed the push for greater freedom and democracy, and that most UAE citizens aren't clamoring for sweeping change while they watch turmoil elsewhere in the region.
"Let's just be modest about it," he said. "It is just very difficult to build a modern, stable democracy.
Others find it elitist to suggest that the Arab world is not ready for democracy. Are we really not deserving, they ask, of what the Indians and Brazilians take for granted? Some will mention cases of controversial election outcomes even in the West and ask: In such a complex world, can any society truly be ready? Is it not better to simply treat genuine freedom as a basic human right?
"The idea that some people are not prepared for justice is racist," respected Egyptian author Alaa Aswany told The Associated Press. "It reflects a lack of respect for people. I absolutely disagree with it."
Still, to Egyptians who see their region's turbulence and observe police and soldiers being killed by Islamic State-affiliated jihadis in the Sinai Peninsula, the security argument especially can resonate. And in Jordan, where there's little doubt that the monarchy is in charge and critics know what lines not to cross, King Abdullah gets major points among the middle classes for keeping a place that borders Syria, Iraq and Palestine calm, even showing some modest economic growth.
There is a noticeable decline in the inclination to demonstrate in many countries although this can mislead: the right to do so is much curtailed and people may have just tired of the trouble and strife.
Certainly many seem terrified by what happened in places that have spun out of control. In Libya, militias hold sway. Yemen is mired in civil war, compounded by a year of Saudi-led airstrikes. Iraq's Sunni regions are overrun by the Islamic State group. In Syria, half the pre-war population of over 20 million has been displaced, and parts of cities have been leveled.
Tunisia has had some success in enacting democratic rule, but it is the exception. Lebanon is paralyzed by confessional politics and has hasn't been able to elect a president in almost two years, and parliament rarely meets. Mahmoud Abbas' term as president of the Palestinian Authority ran out years ago.
Democracy rarely gets mentioned in the United Arab Emirates, although there have been elections for a federal citizens' advisory council. In Saudi Arabia, the monarchy holds absolute control over an opaque, oil-financed government, and municipal councils are the only elected government body. Other Gulf nations have relatively powerless parliaments.
Egypt, compared to most other Arab states, has made impressive strides. El-Sissi overwhelmingly won presidential elections in 2014 with far more votes than had been won two years earlier by Mohammed Morsi, the Islamist president the military overthrew for alleged misrule in 2013. While the election was widely criticized because the previously ruling Muslim Brotherhood was banned, few claim the vote count was falsified no small matter considering the region's recent history. And the president is constitutionally limited to two terms in office a stark contrast to most of the region. Egypt also has a new elected parliament more diverse and empowered than has been the norm in the region.
There has been growing clamor by outsiders and activists against what many term a crackdown on dissent: a law against street demonstrations and another essentially criminalizing anyone contradicting official statements on security; lengthy periods of detention without charges; banning some activists from travelling abroad; and dozens of secret detentions.
But the government's defenders cast the criticism on human rights as unfair since other countries in the region are worse. In this way Egypt finds itself in an ironically similar situation to neighbor and former enemy Israel. Israel's Declaration of Independence promises full equality and that the Jewish state will be a "light unto the nations." With expectations so high, its supporters now struggle to defend the Jewish state's half-century occupation over millions of stateless Palestinians on the grounds that other situations around the world are even worse.
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Dan Perry is AP's Middle East editor leading text coverage in the region. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/perry_dan .
Adam Schreck in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report. (**)
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Linkedin Edith M.Lederer (Associated Press) United Nations Sun, April 10, 2016
For the first time in the 70-year history of the United Nations, all the member states will get a chance to question the candidates for Secretary-General, in a move to make the usually secret selection process for the world's top diplomatic post more transparent.
Last year, the UN General Assembly responded to the strong demand from many countries that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's successor be chosen in a more open process, unanimously adopting a resolution allowing public hearings on how candidates would respond to global crises and run the UN's far-flung bureaucracy.
The secretary-general is chosen by the 193-member General Assembly on the recommendation of the 15-member Security Council, according to the UN Charter.
In practice, this has meant that the council's five permanent members the US, Russia, China, Britain and France have veto power over the candidates. That will not change in deciding whom to recommend to succeed Ban, whose second five-year term ends on Dec. 31.
But General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft said in a recent interview that the two-hour public discussions with each of the eight current candidates, starting Tuesday, are "potentially game-changing."
If a leading candidate emerges and a critical number of countries rally around him or, in what would be a first, her "I think it will be very difficult, and probably not possible, for the Security Council to come up with quite a different candidate," he said.
If the race is unclear, however, then the Security Council "will have a more deciding influence," Lykketoft said.
The resolution adopted last September stresses the need for "gender and geographical balance while meeting the highest possible requirements."
By tradition, the job of secretary-general has rotated among regions. East European nations, including Russia, argue that they have never had a secretary-general and it is their turn. There has also never been a woman secretary-general and many countries support the idea of the first female UN chief.
The resolution invited all countries "to consider presenting women as candidates," but also stressed that the candidate must be highly competent.
There are currently four women and four men who have thrown their hats in the ring six from Eastern Europe, one from Western Europe and one from the Asia-Pacific region.
They are: former Macedonian Foreign Minister Srgjan Kerim; former Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pucic; former Montenegro Prime Minister and current Foreign Minister Igor Luksic; former Slovenian President Danilo Turk; UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova from Bulgaria; former Moldovan Foreign Minister Natalia Gherman; former UN refugee chief and ex-Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres; and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who heads the UN Development Program.
"I'm sure more candidates will be coming, that's for sure," Lykketoft said, "but how many, I don't know."
There is no deadline for jumping into the race, but diplomats said the Security Council is expected to hold its first "straw poll" on the candidates in late July. The 15 council members will vote "encourage" or "discourage" on each candidate and the result will be made public.
Two women mentioned in UN corridors as possible strong late entries are German Chancellor Angela Merkel, though she reportedly isn't very keen on the job, and Kristalina Georgieva, another Bulgarian who is the European Commission's budget chief and a former top official at the World Bank.
The concentration of power in the five permanent members known as the P-5 often has produced UN chiefs with the appearance, some observers have said, of being more secretary than general.
Natalie Samarasinghe, executive director of the United Nations Association-UK and one of the founders of the 1 for 7 Billion campaign for reform in the secretary-general selection process, said that throughout the UN's history "the Security Council concern has always been, 'who's not going to rock the boat, and who's going to cause the least trouble for us.'"
That dynamic has changed somewhat with the new, more open selection process, which "is going to be impossible for the Security Council to completely ignore," she said.
Britain's UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, who encouraged more "credible candidates" to enter the race, said the interviews will be "very important" in the final decision.
"If a candidate does well in the hearings then clearly that is going to increase the prospects of Security Council members encouraging them through the process," he said.
Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin was more cautious, saying the hearings "might" influence the P-5's decision.
"For us it's important that the next secretary-general enjoy the broadest possible support among members of the United Nations," he said.
Ukraine's UN Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko, a council member, called it "a very useful exercise, although with many, many unclear questions of what will be the outcome, and what will be the final platform to judge the qualities of each of eight candidates."
The 1 for 7 Billion campaign, which Samarasinghe said is supported by 750 non-governmental organizations worldwide, is also calling for a single longer term to give the next secretary-general more independence from the major powers.
Lykketoft said the Nonaligned Movement, which represents over 100 developing countries, supports the idea but he doesn't know whether they will push for a General Assembly resolution on a single term, possibly seven years.
The interviews will continue through Thursday. Lykketoft said they will be followed by a second round for expected new candidates.
Secretary-General Ban is staying away from the hearings but is "delighted" they are happening, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Friday.
Asked whether the UN chief had any advice for the candidates ahead of the hearings, Dujarric said that Ban always recalls the advice a middle school teacher in South Korea gave him: "Keep your feet firmly on the ground and your head in the clouds." (**)
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Linkedin Words Banyubening Prieta (The Jakarta Post) Sun, April 10 2016
AFTER MANY SOLD-OUT SHOWS DURING THE MOST RECENT ART STAGE SINGAPORE, organizers are FIXING TO BRING THE EVENT TO JAKARTA.
Lorenzo Rudolf, the founder of Art Stage Singapore, says Indonesia has Asias largest art scene after China, although the nation is plagued by a lack of infrastructure to expose its artwork.
Running one of the biggest art fairs in Singapore for the last six years, Lorenzo says that it's time to put his eggs in another basket: Indonesia.
Hes planning the inaugural Art Stage Jakarta, slated to run from Aug. 5 to 7 at the Sheraton Grand Jakarta Gandaria City.
Indonesia has an important position in Southeast Asia, Rudolf said. It has an outstanding, big art scene. However it is mainly a mainland scene.
Boasting a stable market, many interactive collectors and a scene with a long history; Indonesia can be a prominent player in an arena demanding that shows and curators be top notch.
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Linkedin Elly Burhaini Faizal (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, April 10, 2016
The European Union has expressed its interest in strengthening its political and security partnership with ASEAN.
EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy Federica Mogherini, who is also EU Commission vice president, said stronger cooperation in the field of security and at a political level was key for people in the EU and ASEAN.
So we are increasing the level of partnership in all fields, including politics and security; we are increasing our daily work the EU has appointed a dedicated ambassador to ASEAN for the first time ever, and we are looking forward to moving to the strategic partnership between the EU and ASEAN, she said after a meeting with ASEAN secretary-general Le Luong Minh in Jakarta on Saturday.
Mogherini said the EU and ASEAN cooperation had seen many achievements, which she believed would help to increase economic development, trade and investment for their member countries.
Mogherini handed over the EU-ASEAN Blue Book 2016 a report on the EU's overall cooperation with ASEAN to Minh at the meeting.
In recent years, the EU has stepped up its involvement in security and defense related matters, commensurate with its global role and responsibilities.
Cooperation on broader security issues is a growing element in the EUs relationship with ASEAN.
Mogherini said she and her ASEAN counterpart also discussed the South China Sea, saying the EU had a stake in guaranteeing maritime security.
The EU stands ready to work with ASEAN on confidence-building measures, and believes that negotiations on a code of conduct are key, she said.
This is not something which we are entering into. This is not so an issue that affects us directly, but our approach to controversies is always the same. Out of our European experience, controversies need to be resolved on the basis of respect of international rules that are valid for everybody and in a cooperative way, she said. (sha/ebf)
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Linkedin Ni Komang Erviani (The Jakarta Post) Denpasar, Bali Sun, April 10, 2016
The Indonesian Hindu Religious Councils (PHDI) Sabha Pandita (high priests) have issued an edict declaring Bali's Benoa Bay a sacred area.
The decision, which was made during a Sabha Pandita meeting in Denpasar on Saturday evening, aimed to respond to controversy surrounding a planned reclamation project in the bay.
The high priests said, however, that they did not make the edict specifically in relation to the reclamation.
"We declare today that Benoa Bay is a sacred area that must be maintained and preserved," said high priest Ida Pedanda Gede Bang Buruan Manuaba, who led the meeting attended by 22 high priests from across Indonesia.
The priests said Benoa Bay had many sacred places because the beach was used for religious rituals such as melasti, a Hindu ceremony to spiritually cleanse the soul and nature. It also had many temples, they added.
Citing an example, the priests explained that the Karang Tengah Temple, which is built in the middle of Benoa Bay, was used for mulang pakelem, a ritual to purify the sea. Many temples can be seen in areas around the bay.
"We hope that our decision can be used as guidance for all people," he said.
For Bali, which is predominantly Hindu, the PHDI's religious edict could help to guide the government in forming policies, including on the controversial Benoa Bay project.
The decision was made based on recommendations from a team of nine high priests who conducted a study related to the reclamation project from October last year.
Putu Wirata Dwikora, the chairman of the PHDI's Sabha Walaka (intellectual group), said the decision made by the highest forum of the PHDI must be used as guidance for the government in decision-making. "This also must be used in making decisions on the planned reclamation project. As the high priests have declared Benoa Bay a sacred area, any project that could damage it should not be allowed, including coastal reclamation," Wirata said.
Wirata added that the high priests did not have a stance on the reclamation project. "They only made a decision based on religious context. However, as a sacred area, it is obvious that reclamation cannot be carried out in Benoa Bay," he said.
The planned reclamation of Benoa Bay was proposed by PT Tirta Wahana Bali Internasional, a company owned by business tycoon Tommy Winata. The company is currently carrying out an Environmental Impact Analysis (Amdal) for the project.
Many parties in Bali, including customary villages across the island, tourism stakeholders and environmental activists, have voiced their objections to the plan. (ebf)
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Linkedin Erika Kinetz and Kelvin Chan (Associated Press) Hong Kong Sun, April 10, 2016
The same year Jasmine Li, whose grandfather was the fourth-ranked politician in China at the time, donned a floral Carolina Herrera gown and debuted at a ball in Paris, a company called Harvest Sun Trading Ltd. was born in an aging building at the edge of Hong Kong's red light district. The next year Li bought the company for $1.
The revelations come from a tremendous cache of documents leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca and published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Hong Kong was Mossack Fonseca's go-to spot for financial intermediaries like P&P Secretarial Management, home to 2,212 accountants, banks and other middlemen Mossack Fonseca used to set up 37,675 offshore companies for its global clients between 1977 and 2015 more than any other place in the world, according to ICIJ's analysis.
Hong Kong has emerged as a major design center for offshore vehicles, a place brimming with people expert at packaging and protecting wealth. The back pages of newspapers here teem with advertisements for corporate formation companies, one-stop shops promising fast bank account opening, corporate compliance, tax and accountancy services. Offshore vehicles are used to minimize tax, mitigate political risk, and circumvent onerous regulations in China. And they are completely legal.
But Hong Kong's offshore financial machinery works so well, and so discreetly, that it can be abused by those seeking to hide illicit assets or evade taxes. As traditional havens, like Switzerland, cave to years of grinding pressure from European and American tax authorities, unsavory money is drawn to Hong Kong, which despite reforms, retains its reputation for secrecy, non-cooperation, and a light regulatory touch, watchdog groups and lawyers say.
"Hong Kong attracts this type of hot money from across the region and globally, partly because of its perceived stability," said Iain Willis, a partner at Latymer Partners, a corporate intelligence advisory firm in London. "'Light-touch' financial regulation, easy rules on company incorporation and limited transparency" add to its appeal, he said.
China's Foreign Ministry dismissed ICIJ's reports as "groundless," and the government has aggressively censored discussion of them.
Hong Kong tax authorities said in an email Friday that they would "take necessary actions" based on the offshore leaks, and work to "enhance the efficiency and effectiveness" of enforcement as required.
Mossack Fonseca tapped P&P Secretarial Management which is run by an accountant named Wai-hon Chiu, according to corporate filings to register Harvest Sun Trading in the British Virgin Islands. P&P Secretarial is not listed in the telephone directory, and its contact details are not easy to find on the Internet. Its name is not among the three businesses listed at the entrance to the second-floor office it now occupies in Hong Kong's Wan Chai district. The front door opens onto a lone ivy plant stuck in a corner of two blank white walls. There is no receptionist, and unannounced visitors are not welcome.
"The boss is away. He will be back next week," said a woman in a dark dress, who confirmed that P&P Secretarial did indeed have a presence in the office which did not bear its name. She refused to give her name.
Great fortunes run through small offices like this, and not just from clients of Mossack Fonseca, which derived nearly a third of its business from Hong Kong and China, according to ICIJ.
"It's quite natural that Hong Kong would grow to play a significant role in the plumbing infrastructure of globalization," said Martin Kenney, an asset recovery lawyer in the British Virgin Islands. "They are the architects, designers and engineers of the structures."
In part, the prominence of offshore vehicles in Hong Kong has to do with its special relationship with mainland China. Many investors set up offshore vehicles so they can sell mainland assets without being subjected to layers of government approval. Others have used, and sometimes abused, offshore structures to take advantage of China's tax breaks for foreign companies. More foreign direct investment to China between 1979 and 2014 ostensibly came from the British Virgin Islands than from anywhere else, aside from Hong Kong, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service .
Hong Kong does not tax income that originates abroad, a policy that supports the proliferation of foreign-registered companies. Hong Kong's independent legal system and effective escape route from mainland China's currency controls it's easier to move money between mainland China and Hong Kong than elsewhere also add to its appeal, lawyers say.
The kind of political uncertainty that drove investors offshore before Hong Kong's 1997 handover persists today. The Basic Law, a mini-constitution that enshrines China's "one country, two systems" policy toward Hong Kong, expires in 2047.
"We are on borrowed time," said David Webb, a former investment banker and Hong Kong shareholder activist.
Offshore vehicles have become so commonplace that 75 percent of Hong Kong-listed companies are actually domiciled in Bermuda or the Cayman Islands, according to an analysis by Webb.
But there are other, more controversial uses of Hong Kong's offshore machinery.
The Panama Papers, together with past leaks published by ICIJ, show how China's own political and economic elite use Hong Kong intermediaries to get their money out of China. While the leaks contain no allegations of wrongdoing, they are a sore spot for China's top leadership, which has been trumpeting nationalism and moral virtue as it tries to slow capital flight and fight corruption. Much of the wealth that runs through Hong Kong comes from mainland China, which is widely seen as a growth market in the offshore industry. The top source of funds that Mossack Fonseca helped move offshore was China, according to an analysis of ICIJ data by the Guardian newspaper.
In 2009, when president Xi Jinping's brother-in-law Deng Jiagui wanted to register two companies in the British Virgin Islands, his advisers at Mossack Fonseca turned to a Hong Kong firm called Wong Brothers & Co., according to ICIJ's documents.
The firm's lead partner is an accountant named Charles Chan-lum Chow. Chow was a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a government advisory body, in southern Guangdong province from at least 2003 to 2013, according to state media reports and government websites. He spent 12 years on the board of China Aerospace International Holdings, the listed subsidiary of the main contractor for China's space program.
Chow did not respond to requests for comment.
Deng's companies went dormant before Xi took power, according to ICIJ, and no allegations of wrongdoing have been made. It's not clear what happened to whatever Xi family assets those companies once held.
"Everybody in the elite needs Hong Kong," said Ho-fung Hung, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University. "Everybody. Even Xi Jinping's family needs it. They don't have an incentive to shut this channel to move money out."
It's not just Chinese running money through Hong Kong. When a company linked to France's far-right National Front party wanted to move money out of the country, associates of party leader Marine Le Pen used shell companies in Hong Kong, according to a report in Le Monde newspaper based on the Panama Papers. The French daily has also linked a separate Hong Kong firm with family members of Algeria's governing elite.
The company that helps run two of those firms, P&B Management Services, is housed in a dimly-lit office in Wan Chai district, according to Hong Kong corporate filings. Staff there declined to speak with a reporter.
Large-scale counterfeiters from Germany, Austria and Japan, as well as China, run off-shore structures out of Hong Kong to launder their money, said Douglas Clark, a lawyer at Hong Kong's Gilt Chambers.
"That's part of Hong Kong being a trading city and entrepot," he said. "It welcomes everyone."
Despite a recent crackdown on secrecy, Hong Kong is still ranked as the second most secretive jurisdiction in the world, after Switzerland, by the Tax Justice Network, a U.K. advocacy group.
Rules are only as good as their enforcement, said John Christensen, Tax Justice Network's director, and "Hong Kong has never had a strong supervisory culture."
In 2014, Hong Kong began requiring companies to have at least one real person serving as a director. This effectively barred the practice of creating impenetrable daisy chains of corporate ownership, in which one mysterious company was controlled by another mysterious company.
But clients can easily register companies under other people's names. "They can always find their relative as the nominee," said the director of a small incorporation firm also based in Wan Chai district, who would only give his surname, Lee, for fear of compromising client privacy.
He said most clients don't mind using their real names in filings. The big secrecy business runs out of the gleaming skyscrapers of Hong Kong's Central business district, where elite firms charge ten times his rates, he said.
"Wealthy people, they won't come here," he said. "They'll go to Central. They don't mind paying a few thousand more for more secured, private service."
___
Associated Press reporter Raphael Satter in Paris and researcher Fu Ting in Shanghai contributed to this report.
___
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Linkedin Elly Burhaini Faizal (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, April 10, 2016
Vice President Jusuf Kalla has called on all conflicting parties in the United Development Party (PPP) to reconcile for the sake of the nation.
Speaking on Sunday, the Vice President claimed to have met with Djan Faridz, chairman of the PPP central executive board elected at a muktamar (national congress) in Jakarta in November 2014. He said he had persuaded Djan to accept the results of the eighth muktamar, which was held at the Pondok Gede Haj Dormitory in East Jakarta over the weekend.
At the congress, Romahurmuziy, chairman of the PPP leadership formed at a Surabaya muktamar in October 2014, was re-elected as party chairman by acclamation.
Yes, I have talked to Pak Djan. Lets reconcile for the sake of the nation, said Kalla as quoted by kompas.com after the meetings closing ceremony on Sunday.
Kalla said he hoped his efforts would soften Djans stance and dissuade him from filing a lawsuit against the organizing of the eighth PPP muktamar.
He is still considering his decision. There have been some problems in the past but Im sure this [reconciliation] can be realized, said Kalla.
In an earlier statement, Djan insisted he would never acknowledge the results of the eighth muktamar, and would press on with a lawsuit against the government for not recognizing his leadership.
In his closing speech, Kalla said the government was tired of internal party spats and was pleased that the PPP was finally to reconcile, a handful of dissenters notwithstanding.
We should be grateful for the current situation. While some differences remain, we hope all problems can be resolved, he said.
The weekend's muktamar saw Romahurmuziy elected as PPP chair until 2021.
Based on approval from all muktamar participants, I hereby proclaim Romahurmuziy party chairman for the 2016-2021 period, said Suharso Monoarfa, who led the chairman selection process on Saturday evening.
New era Newly elected United Development Party (PPP) chairman Romahurmuziy receives congratulations from party members following his election on Saturday. (Tribunnews.com/Herudin)
Romahurmuziy later said he had never dreamed of being elected PPP chair at the age of just 41.
Its a great honor for me. I never dreamed of leading a party at a young age, Romahurmuziy said in his acceptance speech.
He added that as one of Indonesia's largest parties, the PPP had to adapt to the era's ongoing changes. Every leader has his or her own era and every era has its own leader, he said. (ebf)
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Linkedin (Associated Press) Mexico City Sun, April 10, 2016
An Austrian laboratory has not found evidence that can confirm that remains found in a trash dump in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero belong to 43 students who disappeared in September 2014, authorities announced.
The Attorney General's Office said in a statement late Friday night that the Institute of Legal Medicine at the University of Innsbruck examined samples including hair and physical remains.
The office said it was not possible to establish genetic profiles through DNA testing so far, though further testing is still being done with those results to be released in the future.
Mexican investigators have theorized that police handed the students over to drug gang members who killed them and incinerated the bodies at the garbage dump.
That finding has been disputed by two outside groups of experts who examined the case and concluded there was no evidence at the dump of a fire large enough to consume all the bodies. Relatives of the students have also publicly doubted the government investigation.
The Attorney General's Office said the Austrian lab determined that some of the hair samples were human, while others were of animal origin.
Those found to be human did not yield a match with DNA sequences of family members of the students.
The case of the missing students has attracted national and international condemnation, and the government's perceived mishandling of it has dogged the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto. (**)
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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, April 10, 2016
The Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Ministry has denied responsibility for ending the National Community Empowerment Program (PNPM).
First established in 2007, the PNPM, which was initiated by then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono with financing from the World Bank, was reportedly wrapped up on Dec.31, 2014.
According to Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Minister Marwan Jafar, the PNPM was implemented under the Home Ministry.
There were minutes sent to the Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Ministry by the Home Ministry that stated that the PNPM had ended, Marwan told a press conference in Jakarta on Sunday. He was responding to increased speculation over the program's demise.
Commenting on the fate of ex-PNPM facilitators, Marwan said that their contracts had ended along with the closing of the program and that they had been informed as such by the Home Ministry.
The Home Ministrys directorate general of village community empowerment sent a letter to facilitators, informing them that the program had ended. Yet they continue to protest, Marwan explained.
The government had offered a solution to the problem, he said, when the Village Fund, a program initiated by President Joko Jokowi Widodos administration, needed facilitators, inviting PNPM facilitators to join a selection test to participate in the Village Fund program.
We have re-employed them as temporary Village Fund facilitators until May this year. They may then re-apply, he said.
Last year, the minister said, around 30 percent of ex-PNPM facilitators had been officially recruited as facilitators in the Village Fund program. However, certain ex-PNPM facilitators were unwilling to take part in the Village Fund selection process, instead demanding that the Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Ministry extend their contracts for five years without any terms or conditions.
This is unfair. I believe there is a politically-motivated power behind the mobilization of the ex-PNPM facilitators to stage such a protest, the minister said.
Marwan also denied accusations that most Village Fund facilitators recruited were members of the National Awakening Party (PKB), of which he too is a member.
I come from the PKB but the selection of Village Fund facilitators was conducted at the regional level. And as you know, very few governors come from the PKB, he said.
The Home Ministrys director general of village community development and empowerment, Ahmad Erani Yustika, said 22,000 Village Fund facilitators had been recruited last year, around 6,600 of whom were ex-PNPM facilitators.
We will recruit around 17,000 to 18,000 more Village Fund facilitators and this will be announced next year. The ideal proportion is one facilitator for one village, which means we need around 74,000 facilitators. But we don't have enough money for that, so for now, one facilitator handles four villages, Ahmad explained. (ebf)
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Linkedin Jim Gomez (Associated Press) Manila, Philippines Sun, April 10, 2016
The Philippine military suffered its largest single-day combat loss so far this year when 18 soldiers were killed in fierce fighting with Abu Sayyaf extremists that also left five Islamic militants dead, including a Moroccan fighter, the military said Sunday.
At least 53 other soldiers were wounded in Saturday's daylong clashes with the Abu Sayyaf militants and allied gunmen in the hinterlands bordering the towns of Tipo Tipo and Al-Barka on Basilan island, regional military spokesman Maj. Filemon Tan and other army officials said.
The large combat casualties were reported as the Philippines marked the Day of Valor Saturday to remember Filipino veterans who died in World War II.
Government forces were deployed to kill or capture Abu Sayyaf commander Isnilon Hapilon, who has publicly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and has been hunted for years for his alleged involvement in several terrorist attacks, three military officials told The Associated Press Saturday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak publicly about the military assault.
Washington has offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Hapilon's capture and prosecution.
The Abu Sayyaf militants, many of whom were armed with M203 grenade launchers, apparently managed to reinforce their ranks quickly as the fighting raged and gathered between 100 and 150 fighters, allowing them to inflict heavy casualties on government troops, the officials said.
The fighting lasted for more than nine hours, they said.
Among the slain militants was a Moroccan, who was identified as Mohammad Khattab, and a son of Hapilon, Tan said, adding about 20 other gunmen were wounded.
It's the largest single-day government combat loss this year in the south, where the military has been battling Muslim separatist rebels and extremists, and Marxist guerrillas.
Last year, 44 police commandos were killed in clashes with various Muslim insurgent groups in southern Mamasapano town while on a covert mission that was fraught with faulty planning and execution but nevertheless killed a top Malaysian terror suspect in Southeast Asia.
Outrage over the police deaths stalled a peace deal with the largest Muslim insurgent group some of whose fighters got entangled in the fighting.
The Abu Sayyaf was founded in 1991 in Basilan, about 880 kilometers (550 miles) south of Manila. With an unwieldy collective of preachers and outlaws, it vowed to wage jihad, or holy war, but lost its key leaders early in combat, sending it on a violent path of extremism and criminality.
The United States and the Philippines have separately blacklisted the Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist organization for carrying out deadly bombings, extortion, kidnappings for ransom, and beheadings of locals and foreigners, including Christian missionaries in the south.
More than a decade of U.S.-backed Philippine offensives have weakened the Abu Sayyaf, but it remains a key security threat.
The brutal group has been blamed for a spike in kidnappings for ransom in recent weeks, including the separate abductions of 10 Indonesian tugboat crewmen near southern Tawi Tawi province and four Malaysian tugboat crewmembers off Malaysia's Sabah state on Borneo Island.
An Abu Sayyaf faction freed a former Italian missionary on Friday after six months of jungle captivity on Jolo island in Sulu province, also in the south. There has been speculation that a huge ransom was paid to secure the freedom of Rolando del Torchio, who was flown to Manila on Saturday, but the military said it was unaware of any such payment.
The militants are believed to be holding three Filipinos and 18 foreigners, including two Canadians and a Norwegian, mostly in their jungle encampments on Jolo Island. (**)
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Linkedin Erika Anindita Dewi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, April 10, 2016
The United Development Party (PPP) declared Muhammad Romahurmuziy its new chairman during its eighth national congress (Muktamar) at Pondok Gede Haj Dormitory in East Jakarta on Saturday.
In the sixth plenary meeting of the Muktamar, Romahurmuziy, who previously served as secretary-general of the PPP leadership group formed at a 2011 Muktamar in Bandung, was elected by acclamation.
According to the congress rules, the election of the party's chairman or central executive board (DPP) chairman must take place in an agreed forum. During the process, the forum leader will ask for approval from all party members on one chairman candidate.
At the meeting, the PPP's DPP deputy chairman Suharso Monoarfa announced Romahurmuziy as the party chairman candidate, drawing applause from over 1,000 PPP members from 33 regional executive boards.
"Do you trust me, who has been involved in the PPP's conflicts over the last one-and-a-half years, to be the real chairman?" Romahurmuziy asked congress participants in his acceptance speech.
"We do!" they replied in unison, showing their agreement with the result of the quick vote.
Speaking after his win, Romahurmuziy said he aimed to get more votes in the upcoming legislative election. In 2014, the PPP obtained 8,157,488 votes (6.53 percent of the total) and 39 seats (7 percent).
The three-day meeting was hosted by PPP leaders elected at the Bandung Muktamar. In 2011, then religious affairs minister Suryadharma Ali was appointed party chairman, alongside Romahurmuziy as secretary-general.
The eighth Muktamar was held following the Law and Human Rights Ministry's decision on Feb. 16 to reactivate a decree that recognized the party's leadership elected at the Bandung Muktamar. The PPP is set to compose new rules and bylaws in the eighth Muktamar, which ends on Sunday. (ebf)
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Corporate tattoo April Fool prank hits the mark
PHUKET: The controversy over Paul Poole (South East Asia) Co Ltd providing corporate tattoos as revealed last week was only a 2016 April Fools prank, but featured by national media, on social media platforms including social media personalities videos going viral.
economicsculture
By The Phuket News
Sunday 10 April 2016, 11:00AM
The Paul Poole branded press release.
Followers of Paul Poole (South East Asia) Co Ltd woke up on April 1 to the news that the company had started to offer corporate tattoos to brands wishing to maximise their commercial sponsorship and partnership marketing efforts.
The news article was accompanied by photos showing the logos of well-known brands adorning the bodies of attractive models and the message: In a world where traditional media is in rapid decline, marketers are faced with constantly changing and at times obscure non-traditional marketing platforms, which everyone is talking about but few seem to understand. Corporate tattoos offer an impactful, tangible and permanent alternative.
Later the same day, Bangkok Post/Post Today, Thaivisa, The Phuket News and Pattaya Today ran stories highlighting the moral issues of encouraging young people to brand their bodies with company logos. The articles cited concerned parents and university staff saying, How can my child go around for the rest of his life bearing a company logo on his body?
And it didnt stop there. YouTube phenomenon and videography company, My Mate Nate, shot a video of Nate, an American teen living in Thailand who is known for his hidden camera pranks, going around showing off his new corporate tattoo.
Given the attention we have received from this years April Fools prank, Im starting to think we should indeed start offering corporate tattoos, joked Paul Poole, Founder, Managing Director and Chairman of Paul Poole (South East Asia) Co Ltd. Lets see if anyone signs up!
Paul Poole (South East Asia) Co Ltd is an independent marketing consultancy based in Bangkok, Thailand specialising in commercial sponsorship and partnership marketing, working with both rights holders and brands acting as a catalyst by bringing them together and maximising the relationship.
We have packaged, sold and managed sponsorship and partnership opportunities for a wide range of rights holders and worked with many of the worlds leading brands to source and engage the right sponsorships and partnerships for them to maximise, said Mr Poole.
Dead and forgotten: Bodies taking up New Delhis decrepit morgues
INDIA: A rusted carving knife and a mallet lie on a steel table, while inside the cold storage rooms, bodies take up every square inch of the blood-stained floors.
culturedeath
By AFP
Sunday 10 April 2016, 08:00AM
A medic walks through a cold storage unit as he inspects a morgue in New Delhi. Photo:Chandan Khanna/AFP
More than 2,500 autopsies are carried out every year at New Delhis oldest and busiest morgue, but the air purifiers have long been broken and disinfectant supplies for washing floors ran out two months ago.
The mortuary is compromised at every level, Sabzi Mandi mortuarys chief doctor, L.C Gupta, said of the dearth of resources.
The decrepit state of the Indian capitals dozen-odd morgues, mostly state run, recently stunned the High Court which ordered the citys government to take action.
From outdated equipment to poor storage of bodies and sick staff, the results of a court-ordered investigation made disturbing reading and shocked many in this deeply religious country.
Its a clear cut case of negligence, said lawyer Saqid, who uses one name, appointed by the court to conduct the probe.
There are a lot of rights under the constitution and people in India spend a lot of time fighting for them, he said as he poured over photos and documents in his office.
But the dead cannot protest their rights.
The crisis is compounded by the sheer number of unidentified bodies, several thousand a year, that fill Delhis morgues after being discovered outside train stations, bus terminals and other public places.
Many are homeless men who pour into the city of 16 million from villages every year desperately searching for work. They die from disease, malnutrition and the impact of living on the citys harsh streets.
Protocol says they must be kept for up to 72 hours in a morgue to allow families time to collect them.
But many remain for much longer, unclaimed by relatives and shunned by the reluctant police who found them, placing a strain on the morgues themselves.
The crisis reportedly boiled over earlier this year when bodies were left on the street outside Sabzi Mandi, with frustrated staff refusing to take them back in.
Mr Gupta denied the incident, but added that police moved quickly to come and collect unclaimed bodies after the row was reported in a leading Indian daily.
In the storage rooms, there are no shelves or racks to hold the numerous bodies. Encased in white plastic, most are lying on the floor, with many of the wrappings ripped and open.
A single, scuffed boot sits on top of one body and a hand flops over the edge of a rusted trolley holding another.
According to the courts report, a key problem is the large number of autopsies performed at the request of overcautious police, creating a backlog and placing pressure on staff.
Police insist on post mortems as a matter of routine even though their own circular says there is no need if there are no suspicious circumstances, Saqid said.
Delhis health minister Satyendar Jain, who reportedly said he felt ill after touring the morgues in the wake of the report, has promised to improve conditions.
Jain declined requests for comment, but his officials have said that a review of the situation is under way.
The court ordered the probe in 2014 after authorities discovered that the body of a prison inmate whose death was being investigated had been chewed by rats.
The report found that a lack of funds impacts on the living as well as the dead, with staff falling ill from handling bodies infected with tuberculosis and other diseases.
At Sabzi Mandi, staff use only bathroom soap to wash their hands, while a shortage of hospital-grade products means floors are cleaned instead with bleach, a doctor said.
Its an occupational hazard, Dr Komal Singh said of staff falling sick at his mortuary at the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital in Delhis west.
The morgue opened in 1995 with four medical officers and with resources for 400 autopsies a year. Now the same number of staff perform up to 1,800 autopsies annually.
With the court finally shining a spotlight on the crisis, Mr Singh said he is hopeful the government will approve his request for more funds to double storage space for bodies and update equipment.
People are interested in the treatment of the living but in our society they dont bother so much about what happens to the dead, he said.
But the court is taking this seriously and we are hopeful.
El Nino bleaching threatens Andaman coral reef sites, may close
PHUKET: After being warned of possible coral bleaching in Thailand as a result of El Nino last year, the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources says it is prepared to cope but may be forced to close affected coral reef sites.
marineenvironmentnatural-resourcestourismeconomics
By Bangkok Post
Sunday 10 April 2016, 11:33AM
Coal reefs along the Andaman coast are under threat by higher-than-average temperatures and mass tourism. Photo: Bangkok Post
The increasing temperatures in the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand earlier this month is a sign, said Nalinee Thongtham, the department's senior fishery biologist.
She said that the influence of El Nino has resulted in increasing seawater temperatures in the eastern Pacific which have remained longer than usual. Once the temperature declines, the mass of warm water moves to the western Pacific, accompanied with high seawater temperatures in the summer season.
This becomes a significant factor in stimulating the bleaching, the biologist added.
This is not the first case of bleaching in Thailand. The natural occurrence took place in 1991, 1995, 2003, 2005 and 2007.
However, the worst case was in 2010 where 66.9 per cent of coral reefs in the northern part of the Andaman Sea and 39% in the southern part died from bleaching.
The biologist said the recovery from 2010 is satisfactory in many areas but the department is concerned that these areas may soon be affected by new bleaching.
"If it happens in a very short period, there is a smaller impact to the coral reefs, which are very sensitive. Or the impact could be immense in which case stronger action is required to limit the problem," she said.
Pinsak Suraswadi, director of Marine Research Institute, said officials at five stations are closely monitoring seawater temperatures, four in the Gulf of Thailand and one in the Andaman Sea.
If the temperature rises to 30.5C in the Gulf of Thailand and 28C in the Andaman Sea, bleaching is likely to happen.
The department has prepared to close coral reef sites, using Section 22 of the 2015 marine and coastal management promotion law that gives the department the authority to manage marine resources and prevent areas from being severely affected.
The high number of tourists could worsen the bleaching. About 12 million tourists visit Phuket every year.
Sommai Plookmaidee, vice-president of Phang Nga's Pru Nai Tambon Administration Organisation (OrBorTor), voiced his concern that a huge number of tourists has had a significant impact on coral reefs.
At Koh Kai Nok alone, there are 300 speedboats carrying about 3,000 tourists every day. There are not enough buoys to service them, resulting in boats anchoring to coral reef sites.
Mr Sommai said he wants to see all stakeholders work together to limit the impact on coral reefs and to enact a recovery plan, including limiting the number of tourists and enforcing waste management at beachfront shops and restaurants.
He added that wastewater and garbage management is the OrBorTor's top priority, to limit the impacts to the marine ecological system.
Read original story here.
Watchman at the end of the world
CHILE: Balancing work and family life is a challenge for most of us, but few come up with solutions as extreme as Jose Aguayo's.
marineculturemilitarytransport
By AFP
Sunday 10 April 2016, 03:00PM
Jose Aguayo watches over the treacherous Drake Passage. Photo: AFP
The Chilean sailor, whose job used to keep him away from his family for long stretches, decided recently to move the whole clan to Cape Horn, near the tip of South America, where he watches over a lighthouse above the treacherous Drake Passage and spends more time a lot more time with his wife, son and daughter.
It is a harsh environment of numbing cold and bitter wind, and the nearest town is more than five hours away by boat.
But to the 36-year-old and his family, this remote outpost at the end of the world is now home.
The kids motivated me a little bit, he said, explaining why he volunteered for the job.
Im a sailor, so I spend a lot of time at sea. Vicente is 11 and Ive been sailing for 10 years. So they wanted to be with their dad, and what better way than being here.
Manning a lighthouse that sits above the spot where the Atlantic meets the Pacific, Aguayo guides ships through a tempestuous stretch of sea that has killed more than 10,000 sailors and shipwrecked 800 vessels since the 17th century.
Known for its icebergs, large waves and strong currents, the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica used to be an essential channel of world trade, until the Panama Canal was completed a century ago.
These days, there is much less traffic. But Aguayo, who arrived in November, still starts his day at 3am, taking meteorological measurements.
By six, he is greeting the tourist boats that ferry curious sightseers to this remote outpost during the southern hemisphere summer.
Weve had 4,000 visitors to the island so far. They ask me how I can still be smiling, Aguayo said.
Cape Horn is the scene of more shipwrecks than any other ocean region in the world, according to the Chilean navy.
Its stories of death and survival in extreme circumstances have inspired the likes of French writer Jules Verne whose book The Lighthouse at the End of the World could well describe Aguayos office and Chilean writer Francisco Coloane, who set his collection Cape Horn there.
Sailors say that navigating Cape Horn gave commanders, captains and crew the envied rank of a true man of the sea and the indisputable right to be listened to everywhere with admiration and respect, said Chilean naval commander Ivo Brito Sanchez at commemorations in January to mark 400 years since the capes discovery.
The Aguayo family has spent the past two months keeping the Cape Horn lighthouse, which was built by the Chilean navy in 1991.
They live in a treeless landscape swept day and night by winds of up to 100 kilometers an hour.
Aguayos wife, Natalia Rodriguez, home-schools their children, Vicente and Montserrat, five.
Besides the familys house, which is at the base of the lighthouse, the only signs of civilisation are a landing strip and a chapel.
There isnt a lot to do, but the kids are doing great, said Aguayo.
Theyre sharing a lot of experiences... and, since weve had a lot of bad weather, they play Xbox in the house, he said.
The house is a fairly ordinary middle-class home, and has satellite, phone and Internet connections.
They may live at the end of the Earth, but were not cut off from the world, said Aguayo.
How to watch and what to know about South Dakota State at North Dakota
Two horses, 365 days, 8,000 kilometres
On Sunday, armed with two horses and a camera, I begin a journey to the end of the world.
Departing from Barretos, Brazil, I will trek for 365 days and 8,000 kilometres through the humid Iguazu jungles of southern Brazil, across the mighty and desolate Andes in Chile, past the occasional Uruguayan urban sprawl, over the boggy grasslands of the Argentine pampas and finally along ancient Patagonian glaciers to Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of South America. Drought, storms, snakes, spiders and unpredictable terrain stand between me and my goal.
To some, this may seem as scary as riding a wild 2,000-pound bull, but this is not my first trip to the rodeo.
The journey:
In 2012, inspired by writer/adventurer Aime Tschiffelys 1925 long ride from Buenos Aires to Washington, D.C., I set out from the Calgary Stampede and rode 16,000 kilometres to my native Brazil. I crossed 10 countries, encountering grizzly bears, drug lords, prostitutes, crooked politicians and thousands of people who offered a helping hand. Two years later, seeping in horse sweat, I arrived in Barretos to the cheers of 40,000 people at the largest rodeo in Latin America.
Back when I first told people about my plan to cross the Americas, many called me a lunatic; it was impossible; I would die a gruesome death on some forlorn desert plateau.
The fact is there wasnt one day out of the 803 I spent in the saddle that I didnt think about quitting. Waking every day in my stuffy, smelly tent, I had one problem or 10 to deal with: hurt horses, bad food, no food, no water, gunshots, rain, snow, heat But for a good cowboy hard-working and stubborn quitting is never an option. During that journey, I often thought about Terry Fox, whose story of resiliency and determination had a deep impact on me as a teenager growing up in Canada. As Fox once said, dreams are made if people try. I think Fox was a cowboy without a horse.
In the months following my heros welcome in Barretos and stepping down from the saddle, it became evident that I was not the same boy who had departed Calgary. Seeing the world at 4 km/h had opened my eyes to the effects of climate change, to drug wars, loss of habitat, economic strife and the role of the old ways in a modern world. I discovered the Earth is full of curious, hopeful and helpful beings. And most importantly, I realized I had become a 28-year-old nomadic spirit who could no longer stay still.
The trail called out to me and I listened with desire.
I also had new inspiration: during a visit to the Barretos Cancer Hospital, in my role as celebrity adventurer, I met many children with cancer. The hospital does not charge its patients for the extraordinary treatment it offers, so millions of dollars must be raised to keep the facility running. Since I had been helped by so many people on my own journey, I vowed to help the hospital, raising funds and awareness.
So, I decided to go on another long ride.
I cant wait to get to know my mares, Doll Olena and Topaz Life, and see them become my team, my herd. By the time I finished my first ride, my horses Frenchie, Bruiser and Dude knew what I was thinking and feeling. I spent every day for two years and three months with those majestic animals. When I retired them at my familys farm in the interior of Sao Paulo, I felt like a proud father. Im interested to see how my new girls will compare to my farting, snoring, pissing-in-their-hay boys.
After six months of research, planning and fundraising, the time has come to pack my things, saddle my mares and hit the road. Everything I can carry must fit into my pack saddle and weigh less than 170 pounds. From my toothbrush to my underwear, to camera equipment, to horse medication, everything has to have a real value or it stays behind.
For the next year you can watch me eat a lot of ramen noodles, sleep atop my saddle pads and bathe in icy streams. All while trying to stay alive and keep my horses healthy.
Cowboy is another word for freedom, an old Mexican vaquero once told me over a bottle of maguey.
I love being free thats why I ride.
The Calgary-to Brazil trip: Many called be a lunatic
On the trip, there wasnt one day in 803 that Filipe Masetti Leite didnt think of quitting. Here are some of the highlights
Calgary
Yellowstone
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Mexican border
Guatemala/Honduras border
Costa Rica
Barretos, Brazil
Filipe Masetti Leite is a filmmaker, Ryerson University journalism graduate and cowboy en route to Tierra del Fuego. Over the next year, he will file monthly reports to the Star from the trail. Dispatches from his 2012 journey can be seen at www.outwildtv.com/expeditions/journey-america. A book and TV reality series are set to be released later this year.
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To be a black Muslim woman in Toronto is to feel deep isolation, the result of omnipresent systemic anti-black, patriarchal and Islamophobic discrimination. It is to be under constant attack. To see bodies like mine ignored in the news when they suffer, when they disappear and when they die, unjustly.
Evidently some do not believe this is true. During Black History Month, I was bombarded by tweets from white men asking me to prove that racism, Islamophobia and misogyny exist. Why should I have to prove the existence of the forces that torment me and members of my community to people who dont believe they exist and, worse, who perpetuate them? And so two months ago I tweeted, Plz Allah give me strength not to cuss/kill these men and white folks out here today. I put my rage and trauma into words, not action, not threat. Faced with hate, I sought restraint from god and support from my online community.
Fast forward to now. Black Lives Matter Toronto, a movement I cofounded, camped outside the police headquarters for two weeks through incredibly difficult weather conditions fighting for justice against the attack on black life in Toronto. The protest was prompted by the police shooting of Andrew Loku, a man armed only with a hammer, and the lack of transparency that followed. We have been calling for an end to anti-black racism in all institutions, from the racist practice of carding to the lack of accountability, transparency and oversight of police officers who kill black people in this city. And we got results. In two weeks, we convinced city councillors to pass a motion at city hall to investigate the lack of transparency and anti-black structures of Ontario's Special Investigations Unit. Afro-fest was restored to two days. And Premier Kathleen Wynne committed to having a public meeting with us.
As the movement gained traction, I became increasingly visible and increasingly the target of those who oppose our cause. Jerry Agar, a Toronto Sun columnist with a long, well-documented record of enmity to our anti-racist goals, attempted to use my visibility to discredit me. A day after the conclusion of #BLMTOtentcity, he cited the aforementioned tweet in an attempt to delegitimize an entire movement, and to position my community as undeserving of justice.
I am not a public official. I am not a police officer. The state does not entrust me with violent weaponry. I have never contributed to the mass targeting of a community. All I have done is used a turn of phrase, a rhetorical flourish, to voice my frustration and dared to be a person calling for justice.
To date, I have directly received many disturbing death threats from white supremacists across the country. Somehow a tweet I wrote out of anger months before our protest began has become a bigger media story than our protests many and profound accomplishments. The noise surrounding this tweet has also drowned out the discussion we sought to spark about the black lives of those who have died at the guns of police in this country. Journalists have incessantly harassed me, desperate to get a comment on the tweet. Where were they during the entire two weeks of #BLMTOtentcity? The media is part and parcel of how anti-black racism works. Too often black people are ignored or vilified when we speak the truth about our condition.
To be black in Toronto is to have been or know somebody who has been brutalized, violated or battered by the Toronto police. Our lives are plagued by institutional and individual anti-black racism that compromises our access to safety, economic freedom, proper health care, food, housing, employment, education and culturally restorative support services. To be black in this city is to fight to survive.
Mayor John Tory responded to reports of my tweet less than 24 hours after they emerged. Yet for the more than two weeks black people fought for our humanity in protest outside of police headquarters, he ignored us. That is something everyone in this city should be concerned about. Despite all the violence we endure when we resist, we can never lose sight of the issues; we must continue to seek justice and accountability for our community. We only have more work to do, and this is only the beginning. Black lives matter, here as everywhere, and they always will.
Yusra Khogali, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto, is a community organizer, anti-racism educator and black feminist poet. She is also a graduate student at the University of Toronto pursuing a masters in Social Justice Education.
Correction - April 19, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly referred to the Toronto Police's Special Investigations Unit. In fact, the SIU is an independent arms length agency of the Ontario government.
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Jeffrey Baldwins death horrified Ontarians and led to calls for a wholesale review of the provinces child protection standards. The 5-year-old died in 2002 at the hands of his Toronto grandparents, neglected, abused and starved to death.
That prompted a decade-long round of soul-searching in the child protection community, after it came to light that workers from the Catholic Childrens Aid Society had failed to check the societys old files that documented the grandparents previous convictions for assaulting their own children before Jeffrey was placed with them.
Now, at long last, the Ontario Association of Childrens Aid Societies is responding to an inquest into Jeffreys death with major reforms. It is beefing up training for child protection workers, setting province-wide standards, and looking to eventually have a professional college regulate them.
That matters in a province with no fewer than 47 independent child protection agencies.
As the Stars Sandro Contenta and Jim Rankin report, under the planned system new recruits will have to pass eight standardized courses and a final exam during a four-month training period before they are authorized to fully perform child protection duties. Right now workers are authorized to perform all duties as soon as they are hired.
As well, the association is in talks with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers, which regulates more than 17,400 people involved in social work, to bring Ontarios 5,160 child protection workers under its umbrella. All of the colleges members have a bachelors or masters degree in social work. But only just over half of the child protection workers do. So the association and college are looking into setting up training and courses that would equal a degree, and moving in the direction of requiring all eligible staff to be registered with the college.
Says association president Mary Ballantyne: We want to make sure that the people who are doing the work have the very best training and competence to be able to do it.
Ultimately the idea is to have child protection workers become members of the college. The college would regulate their practices, standards and ethical codes. It would also have the power to investigate complaints from parents and to discipline workers for professional misconduct or incompetence.
That opens the door to a tussle with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, who represent some of the workers. CUPE argues they already have high levels of oversight that include workplace supervisors, family courts, coroners inquests and annual case audits by the ministry.
Be that as may be, Ontario has an obligation to do whats best for vulnerable children such as Jeffrey Baldwin. That should be the guiding principle, going forward.
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Jim Cramer fills his blog on RealMoney every day with his up-to-the-minute reactions to what's happening in the market and his legendary ahead-of-the-crowd ideas. This week he blogged on:
Why banks should want to be more like the utilities
Why Allergan, Disney and oil were a gift for the bears
Click here for information on RealMoney, where you can see all the blogs, including Jim Cramer's -- and reader comments -- in real time.
If Only the Banks Were More Like Utilities
Posted on April 8 at 7:15 a.m. ET
Jamie Dimon's annual letter sure didn't make you feel great about owning bank stocks, especially that call-to-action moment where he pretty much warned that turning the banks into utilities would be bad for the country.
But would it be bad for the stocks? When I looked at everything that's happened in the market, the most glaring thing, the ugliest portion of the whole tape, came from the banking group -- where stocks just gave up whatever meager hope might have been there before the quarters are reported.
Banks, lest we forget, are immensely profitable. They take your money in, they lend it or invest it, they buy back stock, they pay big dividends and you get income and growth from them.
Oops. That's no longer the case, really, is it? They take your money and they pay all sorts of internal regulators and controllers with it ,while they do nothing with it to generate any sort of outsized return and then they try to return capital to you but the regulators tell them what to do.
Which brings me back to the utility question.
Banks could only wish they were utilities, which, by the way, are consistent, pay a good dividend, and have some growth characteristics that banks should be envious of.
We know that Dimon's stock has done as well as the S&P 500 during his tenure, which is still better than almost all in his group.
But let's compare the biggest deposit bank with one of the biggest -- if not the biggest -- utility: Bank of America (BAC) and American Electric Power (AEP) . Five years ago today, Bank of America was at $13. Today it is at $12.85. American Electric Power was at $36.50. Today it is at $65.60. You got about $10 in dividends from AEP in that period, while you got about 50 cents from Bank of America.
Without even including the power of dividend compounding, one could easily argue that we wish the government would turn banks into utilities - as they offer some genuine performance and income. They are exactly what bank stocks used to be!
Now it wasn't always that we declared banks just creatures of net interest income, which, in some ways, is the equivalent of what the states will let AEP earn. That's just since Dodd-Frank and the Volcker rule: where these banks were stripped of creative ways to make more money. Once you took that away, the street gravitated not toward analyzing any fee streams, no matter how much they were augmented, or any trading fees, given that they have been crimped beyond belief, but just settled on that net interest margin as a gauge.
Again, that's a lot like what has happened with utilities. We don't really care what else they generate, we just look at what relief they get from the regulators.
Again, the regulators in utilities clearly are willing to give investors in their flock better returns than the bank regulators are.
Now you could say that I am ruining the comparison by using Bank of America as the brass standard, here. But Keycorp (KEY) has moved from $8.8 to $10. PNC (PNC) from $66 to $81. BB&T (BBT) has gone from $28 to $32. First Horizon (FHN) moved from $11 to $12. Those are all pretty representative examples of banks you wish were utilities. (To be fair, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) has gone from $43 to $57 and Action Alerts PLUS holdingWells Fargo (WFC) has gone from $29 to $46, but they still can't touch AEP.)
Oh, and let's throw in something that perhaps is far more important: Have you been able to sleep at night, owning Bank of America? Go try the Sominex of AEP, you might like it.
So maybe banks serve vital functions, but as far as I am concerned the function that we want them to do -- give us growth and income -- can be much better found in the utilities that Dimon doesn't want banks to be turned into.
No wonder the group is considered such a pariah, right now. As we head into what will be yet one more crummy bank-earnings season, given the opportunities to make money with them, either capital appreciation or capital preservation, they deserve the opprobrium.
Position: Long BAC, WFC
Allergan Shows Pharma Is Back in the Political Doghouse
Posted on April 5 at 11:24 a.m. ET
Where did all those buyers go? Isn't that how you always feel, when you come in and read some corporate news that's disturbing -- the government's rule change that killed the Allergan (AGN) deal (Allergan is a holding of our Action Alerts PLUS charity portfolio) and the re-shuffling at the top of Disney (DIS) -- plus another down day for oil and, voila, we are down almost 1%?
But oddly, the reason why that triple play is more potent than it should seem is that it serves as a reminder of three of the four more recent roving bear markets, which many had thought were put behind us yet have suddenly surfaced again.
First, Treasury's rebuke of the Pfizer (PFE) -Allergan deal (what to do with Allergan is covered in several critical Action Alerts PLUS bulletins we have been issuing) has all sorts of overtones that were momentarily shelved for brighter climes.
One is that the drug companies are still truly hated in Washington and are easy whipping boys. Last week the drug company stocks seemed washed out as a new quarter began. But then Bernie Sanders surged ahead in the Wisconsin polls and, for many, Sanders stands for lower price-to-earnings multiple these days. It's not like someone in Washington wants to help one so-called rapacious capitalist drug company buy another rapacious drug company while cheating Uncle Sam.
On a larger issue, of course, is the notion that corporations that play by the rules are getting slain by the rules. Allergan and Pfizer had structured this deal to fit with Treasury regs. But then the regs were changed. Wall Street hates that kind of thing, even regards it as a sort of Fifth Amendment taking by the government. "Hey, those are my arb profits, step aside."
With Pfizer out of the picture, suddenly we have to value Allergan after the arbs have booted it and that new valuation on a double-digit grower right now looks to be like those of many single-digit growers like Pfizer or Merck (MRK) , suggesting that there's nothing special going on at Allergan except price increases that will draw the ire of the Sanders crowd, which is motivating the Clinton crowd until she takes the nomination.
Ah, I get it, hedge funds fear they are now in Valeant (VRX) number two, even as Allergan is taking share away from Valeant and doesn't need price increases to make its numbers. But so what!
In other words, pharma's back in the political doghouse, getting it from all sides. At the same time, the hedge funds that had piled into Allergan are now hurting, so their pain has to spread. The bear just might frolic in the pharma group and the investors in hedge funds remain an unhappy bunch. Two themes we thought were behind us, now front and center.
Second, the sudden departure of Tom Staggs from the race to succeed Bob Iger at Disney took so many by surprise that you have to figure something bigger is up. The sub rosa litany? Staggs dealt with ESPN. Perhaps ESPN is even worse than we thought. That whole entertainment group has been up for days. Maybe they have been up for weak reasons. So sell them all. After the run some of these have had, especially Time Warner (TWX) , you get the picture.
Finally, and most overwhelmingly, there's oil. When this market rallies, oil's driving the bus. As we challenged the $40s, here was the narrative: The higher oil goes, the less worry there is about credit weakness. The less worry about credit weakness, the less concern about systemic risk and major defaults.
As oil was repulsed from the $40 redoubt, the whole litany runs reverse. Oil looks scarily bi-polar: when it is at $40 it looks like it is going to $60; when it is in the low $30s, it looks like it is going to $20.
It is probably going somewhere in between, but when oil's going down the market simply reads that as a sign of recession, and until we hear some self-fulfilling "there could be a deal still to be reached" at the April 17 meeting in Doha chatter -- the story that drove oil from the $20s to begin with -- I think oil's just going to keep heading down. The good news? Some country's oil minister does always seem to pop out from behind a well to say it.
So, drugs back in bear mode, entertainment back in bear mode and oil back in bear mode. The only thing missing? The banks! They are at the epicenter of all bear maulings, and they've been drifting down for days now. My bet? They do more than drift, now that the other fault lines have been exposed.
Why not?
The bear knows where to lurk after a run.
Always does. Always will.
Position: Long AGN
At the time of publication, Jim Cramer's charitable trust Action Alerts PLUS held no positions in stocks mentioned.
As if Wall Street weren't already competitive enough, a downtown Manhattan footrace will pit finance giant against finance giant.
Bloomberg will host the Square Mile Relay in New York City's Financial District for the first time on Thursday, April 21. Over 100 teams from leading financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank, are slated to compete.
"The Bloomberg Square Mile Relay is a unique sporting event which offers a perfect opportunity for the city's most competitive runners to come together for a night of camaraderie, teamwork, celebration and networking. Our goal is to offer a platform for teams from local corporations to express their sporting enthusiasm while bonding with fellow colleagues," said Nick Keller, managing director of event organizer Square Mile Sport, in a press release. "The event is open to all levels of experience -- whether you are an elite or leisure runner -- we want everyone to enjoy this relay."
Each team will consist of 10 members. Each member will run one mile on a course that winds through lower Manhattan, starting in the Seaport District on Fulton Street.
"The financial industry is a competitive market and these organizations will be similarly battling it out for top position as they jostle each other around every turn to get the edge over their peers before handing the baton to their waiting colleague," Keller said in an email to TheStreet. "However, runners of every level or experience can take part in the relay and after completing their lap, participants can enjoy first class hospitality and a live DJ during the after-race party."
The winning team will win a $10,000 donation to the charity of its choice. The Bloomberg Square Mile Relay has also named the National September 11 Memorial & Museum as the official charity partner of the event and will make a donation to help support its mission.
"We are grateful for the generous support the Bloomberg Square Mile Relay has shown by selecting us as its official charity partner for the inaugural event in New York. Partnerships such as these are critical to help ensure the Memorial and Museum is sustained, and that visitors from around the world, especially current and future generations, will be able to experience this world-class learning institution and living tribute for years to come," said Cathy Blaney, 9/11 Memorial's executive vice president of institutional advancement.
The Square Mile Relay may be new to New York, but the concept has been around for quite some time. First launched in London in 2007, events have been held in various global financial centers -- Dubai, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney.
Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP, said in a statement that his firm is excited to bring the race to its home city. "The race embodies the importance of speed, team work, and giving back -- three values that we celebrate at Bloomberg," he said.
Keller said he hopes the relay will become "an annual fixture on Wall Street's sporting calendar."
JPMorgan won the most recent Square Mile Relay in Sydney, finishing with a time of 1:02:12 and beating out a team from Macquerie by just eight seconds. The 2015 event in London saw Barclays come out ahead, with a time of 53:59, edging out teams from JPMorgan, Trayport, Nike and Credit Suisse.
Montreal, CA (H4T1V6)
Today
Mainly cloudy. A few peeks of sunshine possible. High 66F. Winds light and variable..
Tonight
Cloudy with occasional showers overnight. Low 49F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%.
This solar array is at Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School in Franklin. On Wednesday, the Massachusetts House passed a compromise solar energy bill, but environmentalists say it falls short. (Staff file photo by Mike George)
FILE - This undated handout file photo provided by the FBI shows Brenda Delgado. Mexican prosecutors on Friday, April 8, 2016, said they have detained, Delgado, a woman on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted fugitives list for the killing of a dentist in Texas. Delgado was detained at a house in the city of Torreon, in northern Coahuila state, according to the Attorney General's Office. (FBI via AP, File)
The Chief Rabbinate of Israel Council expressed disapproval and anger over growing and constant High Court of Justice involvement in matters of halacha. All too often, members of the council are compelled to convene and discuss yet another High Court ruling that deals with matters of halacha and the rabbonim feel these matters should be left to them to adjudicate, not the secular High Court.
According to a Kikar Shabbos News report, during a recent meeting of the council, Beersheva Chief Rabbi Yehuda Deri Shlita was furious, stating I am shocked that all of us sit here quietly as we see the High Court trend. A fool would think, and I say this mostly about myself, that this will stop with the issue of the mikvaos of the egalitarian prayer area by the Kosel.
Rav Deri warned colleagues of the trend, explaining time and time again we convene to discuss High Court decisions [that have halachic ramifications. We cannot plug holes [made by the High Court] all day. Why dont we release an emotional call as a requirement or request that all matters of religion should be left to us to deal with us autonomously. The High Court cannot begin to intervene in all religious matters.
Deri feels that the words must be said even if they are not heard for clearly the High Court is also affected by public opinion. He feels the court has exceeded all acceptable boundaries and the time has come for the Rabbinate to go to battle for the soul of the nation.
Council member HaGaon HaRav Yaakov Rosa said From the day the Chief Rabbinate of Israel was established and the progress since then, today the Rabbanut is disgraced.
Rav Deri remained adamant, telling his colleagues they must act for if not, the trend will worsen. He questions the value of the establishment of the Chief Rabbinate if the nations Supreme Court can change its decisions at will. We are calling for autonomy regarding matters of religion. Deri believes an impassioned plea to the High Court can indeed have a positive effect.
HaGaon HaRav Avraham Yosef Shlita added The Rishon LTzion responded to the courts decision and the court president, Justice Naor responded its none of your business.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
[PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]
Zaka professionals provided basic extrication and disaster preparedness training to volunteers from the PA (Palestinian Authority)-affiliated Green Land organization.
Prior to beginning to operate in the field as seen in the photos, the volunteers met for months, attending classes during which the basics of search and rescue were explained to the PA volunteers. The classes also addressed dealing with fatalities at disaster scenes and maintaining command of an area during a disaster.
This didactic training was followed by three days of practical training in the field, including a simulated earthquake and natural disaster. Under the watchful eye of extrication instructors volunteers operated at the scenes in groups, seeking to gain a level of expertise in a number of skills.
Zaka feels such cooperation is essential towards true preparedness for saving lives in the event of a true natural disaster in Israel, such as a major earthquake.
Green Lands Dr. Akram Amram said Natural disasters do not discriminate and strike us all. We too, residents of the region, must be united to assist and save one another without differentiating between peoples. We cannot rely on others for this.
Dr. Akram praised the course and the Zaka volunteers, calling this a first step in improved cooperation for combined humanitarian mission that faces them all in the event of an emergency.
Zaka CEO Yehuda Meshi-Zahav added, Zaka views the training and cooperation with the utmost importance. With the vast experience we have amassed over the years by responding to disasters around the world, most citizens are rescued by local residents and not by search & rescue teams that linger in their arrival. Therefore, the more citizens trained to respond to light rescue means more persons will be rescued. Being that Zaka is an international organization recognized by the UN permits us to enter into partnership training with the Palestinians and others in the region.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
by Rabbi Yair Hoffman for the Five Towns Jewish Times
As always, it seems that Kitniyos is in the news again. For this Pesach, the Conservative movements Committee on Jewish Law and Standards issued a non-binding ruling for Conservative Jews that they do not have to keep Kitniyos anymore for Passover. There were 19 votes to repeal, one vote to keep it and two votes abstaining. Of course, the custom of abstaining from Kitniyos is far older than many religions, including both Protestant Christianity and even Islam. Below is a history and overview.
HISTORY
The origins of the minhag to not eat kitniyos (often defined as legumes) on Pesach dates back, according to some, to the times of the Geonim (see SMaK 222). During the time of the Gemara, however, the prohibition did not exist. Indeed, the Gemara tells us that Rabbah ate rice in front of Rav Huna (Pesachim 114b). Rav Ashi also rules that rice may be eaten on Pesach. But, clearly, in the time of the Geonim things changed.
REASONS
The reason why kitniyos were forbidden, of course, was as a protective measure. The Mishnah Berurah (O.C. 453:6, 464:5) provides a few explanations:
Kitniyos are harvested and processed in the same way that chametz is. The masses would confuse the two and come to permit grains for themselves.
Kitniyos can also be ground and baked, just like chametz, and people might come to permit chametz grains.
The Kitniyos themselves may have actual chametz mixed in. All three reasons are therefore protective in nature. The prohibition was strictly limited to consumption; one may own and derive benefit from kitniyos on Pesach.
WHAT IS INCLUDED?
Just what is included in kitniyos? The term legumesis a misnomer, as that word simply means a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the edible fruit or seeds of such plants, such as beans and peas. The prohibition extended beyond just legumes, however. Rice, mustard, and corn (see M.B. 453:4) are also included. So are buckwheat, lentils, and sesame seeds.
What about Quinoa? The Badatz of the Eida Chareidis (Madrich HaKashrus 5772, Ch. 15, pg. 47) views it like corn which came to be included in the prohibition, while Rav Heineman from the Star K rules that it is permissible. The OU initially forbade it, with a printed response by Rav Yisroel Belsky ztl (VeKasher HaDavar (July 2012, pg. 9) explaining that Quinoa fit every criterion for Kitniyos. Rav Hershel Schachter lhavdil bain chaim lchaim had disagreed with Rabbi Belsky from the outset on this issue and in December of 2013, Rabbi Genack announced that Quinoa is not to be considered Kitniyos. They did this, according to the announcement, after investigating issues of cross-contamination in several countries. In addition to quinoa, OU Kosher has concluded that related canihua, kiwicha and maca seeds would also not be considered Kitniyos.
The TaZ writes that it is simply impossible to clearly define and quantify what is included in the category.
What about coffee? Is that a bean? The Shaarei Teshuvah forbids coffee as kitniyos. The prevalent Minhag is not to follow the Shaarei Teshuvah and to permit it. (This was true even before Maxwell House sponsored the English language Haggadahs).
And what about peanuts? Some say yes, some say no. Many of our older readers will remember the peanut oil with a Pesach hechsher that used to dominate our kitchen cabinets. No longer.
WHY THE STRINGENCIES?
And why are we so stringent regarding derivatives of kitniyos? This comes from a halachah found in the Rama: the Rama indicates that oil made from kitniyos is forbidden just like the kitniyos themselves. Cottonseed oil is perplexing, because some say yes and some say no. Canola oil is kitniyos, too.
FROM WHEN IS IT FORBIDDEN?
When are kitniyos forbidden? The Sheivet HaLevi (Vol. III, No. 31) rules that the time we can no longer eat them is the same time as for chametz itself. The Maharsham (Daas Torah 453) permits it, until the evening of Pesach itself. The minhag is to be stringent, but for those direct descendents of the Maharsham (quite a few of whom live in Lawrence), it would be okay to eat kitniyos on erev Pesach.
THE LENIENCIES
There is also a leniency. Kitniyos is battul brov if mixed in accidentally with other (kosher lPesach) food (see Mishnah Berurah 453:9). In other words, even if the taste is distinguishable, as long as the kitniyos constitutes less than half of the final mixture and is not removable, the food remains kosher! The Rav Shulchan Aruch says that this doesnt work if it is the main part of the dish even when less than half.
Sick people may also eat kitniyos on Pesach, and it is permitted to feed kitniyos to infants or to animals. The Chasam Sofer writes (O.C. 122) not to let it cook a long time in the pot, but rather to heat up the water first and then put in the kitniyos (which is what we do anyway, except when using a rice cooker). Ideally, if one is feeding someone kitniyos, a separate pot should be kept for that use (Pri Chadash 453). There is no need to kasher, though, if an error was made.
OTHER HALACHOS
Are Kitniyos Muktzah on Shabbos? No, rules Rav Asher Weiss. Why not? Because they may be given to a Sephardic Jew on Yom Tov. Indeed Rav Elyashiv ztl ruled that on Isru Chag that falls on a Shabbos, one may have kitniyos because of a combination of factors including that it is permissible to Sefardim and therefore did not become Muktzah the previous bein hashmashos.
When a couple gets married, the wife follows the customs of the husband. So a Sephardic girl who marries an Ashkenazic boy cannot have kitniyos, while an Ashkenazic girl who marries a Sephardic boy may have kitniyos. This is true for a second marriage, as well.
Rav Elyashiv ztl had ruled that the minhag is that one should avoid vessels that had kitniyos cooked in them even if the vessels were used more than 24 hours ago. He did rule, however, that if it could insult someone heaven forbide, there is room to be lenient (page 14 of the Rav Elyashiv Hagaddah).
WILL IT BE CHANGED?
Another question: Is the prohibition of kitniyos here to stay? The Teshuvah MeAhavah (No. 259) seems to indicate that it is. He writes that even if the beis din of Shmuel HaRamasi or Eliyahu HaNavi were to reconvene, they would not have the ability to permit kitniyos. And, at least according to some poskim, it is a pretty serious prohibition; the Maharil (Hilchos Pesach 25) writes that violating the minhag can cause one to be put to death!
A PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH
But why all the stringencies? Why do we forbid so many things and their derivatives, as well? Why on erev Pesach, too? Perhaps a philosophical approach to kitniyos can answer a lot of our questions. One reason, given by the father of Koznitz Hagaddahs publisher (found in the Nuta Gavriel), is that the word alludes to a notion that means small, while Pesach is associated with things that are great.
To elaborate a bit, kitniyos represents something which is the antithesis of Pesach. Of all the holidays on the Jewish calendar, Pesach connotes greatnessa realization of who we are as a nation, and a concomitant recognition that Hashem had great purpose in redeeming us from the hand of Pharaoh. Within the small nation of Israel lies cosmic significance with a national spiritual destiny that can affect the world. Pesach connotes geulah, redemption, with all the overtones implied in the word.
Kitniyos, on the other hand, alludes to smallness. The word conjures up thoughts of a myopic, small-mindedness of sorts, where the cosmic significance and the national destiny of the Jewish people is ignored. Everything that we do has import, even down to the foods we eat or the foods that we do not eat. Perhaps we are so stringent in avoiding kitniyos to help us dispose of the small-mindedness that can get us stuck into just looking at the trees without seeing the forest. For the same reason, the community of the town of Ostreich refrained from eating kitniyos on any day on which Tachanun is not recited (see Beer Heitev O.C. 131, citing the Maharil). What is the reason? Perhaps it is to appeal to the inner voice within us to achieve our destiny, both as a people and as individuals.
The author can be reached at [email protected]
President Obama is no stranger to the Washington Sunday showshes appeared on ABCs This Week, CBSs Face the Nation, and NBCs Meet the Pressbut, until now, and for his entire time in the White House, Obama has cut and shunned Fox News Sunday.
I dont know that there was a formal explanation [from the Obama White House], but basically, they made it clear they werent very happy with Fox News, said Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace, who finally got his presidential exclusive for this weekends broadcast after countless scorned invitations.
Wallace taped his interview with Obama on Thursday for the show, which celebrates its 20th anniversary on April 28, and their conversation, at the White Houses insistence, is embargoed until 9 a.m. Sunday.
This is Money rounds up the Sunday newspaper share tips. Midas looks at crane specialist Lavendon and the Sunday Times assesses the prospects of Burberry.
MAIL ON SUNDAY
The equipment hire industry has gained an unfortunate reputation for disappointment. HSS Hire has lost 65 per cent of its market value since floating in February 2015.
Sadly, Speedy Hire shares have also slumped since they were recommended by Midas that same month. Even Ashtead, their much larger peer, has been affected by concerns about the outlook for the sector.
Lavendon Group has been dragged down in their wake. Trading at more than 200p last June, the stock is now 133p. But the company is different from its listed rivals and the shares deserve to move higher.
Lavendon specialises in powered access equipment machines that enable workers to operate safely and productively at height.
The companys equipment is generally associated with helping contractors constructing huge buildings such as airports, logistics warehouses and shopping malls.
But its kit is also used to install and maintain mobile phone masts and wind turbines, clean high buildings, film events including the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and even renovate old structures and buildings such as Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, Cologne cathedral and the Louvre in Paris.
Lavendons results for 2015 were above expectations and a first-quarter trading update this week should strike a confident note.
Brokers forecast a 4 per cent rise in 2016 pre-tax profits to 40.1 million, with stronger growth in 2017. The group is paying a 5.4p dividend for 2015, expected to rise to about 5.8p this year.
Midas verdict: Lavendon is suffering by association with the wider equipment rental sector, but it is more specialised than its peers and has a six-year record of profit and dividend growth. At 133p, the shares are worth tucking away.
>> Read the full Midas column
SUNDAY TIMES
Burberry set hearts aflutter in the fashion world (not difficult) when it unveiled a television ad this month for its new cologne, Mr Burberry.
It is part of the luxury giants push into beauty, one of many levers being pulled by Christopher Bailey, the 8m-a-year creative boss and chief executive, to get Burberry moving in the right direction again.
Baileys problem, as ever these days, is China. The slowing economy and a crackdown on excess by the communist regime have hit the luxury sector hard. Burberry has not been immune.
At 18.4 times earnings, the stock continues to trade at a premium to its peers. This appears to be a reflection of past glories under [Hannah] Ahrendts rather than of its prospects, which look uninspiring.
Two iconic British industries are suffering dramatically different fates. As British steel stumbles into crisis with thousands of jobs at risk, Britains car factories are booming.
A lack of investment and the heavy burden of environmental and business taxes are holding steel-makers back, insiders says.
But they argue that changes to Government policies and big investment in the technology required to make the quality of steel needed for cars could help British steel-makers ride the British automotive boom.
Under-utilised: British car-makers use just 17 per cent of UK produced steel
Car sales and the number of vehicles leaving British factories are nearing record levels.
The number of cars made in the UK has risen every year since 1999, when the figure stood at just under 1million. Today Britain produces 1.6million vehicles a year and that figure is forecast to leap to 2million by 2020.
But while 1.6million tons of British steel is used by the car industry each year it accounts for just 17 per cent of total UK steel production and industry insiders say steel-makers need to invest in higher quality steel if they want to sell more to the booming motor factories.
There are really advanced types of steel which you can do amazing things with, such as make it as sharp as a knife-point, or curve it a certain way for newer cars, said an insider. You just cant get everything you need from domestic suppliers so you have to go to suppliers from Spain, Germany or Poland.
British steel-makers have suffered not just from cheap Chinese imports dumped in the UK, but from high energy levies and high business rates.
One insider said: If the Government helped with those two latter issues, then British steel could invest in producing the higher grades of steel we need but cant currently source from the UK.
The industry is very energy-intensive and UK business rates are out of kilter with the rest of Europe.
The amount of British steel used by each manufacturer varies. Vauxhall, for example, told The Mail on Sunday that 50 per cent of the steel it uses at its Ellesmere Port plant in Cheshire to produce the Astra is from Port Talbot, while 40 per cent of the steel in its Vivaro van is also from the South Wales works.
Coy: Tata-owned Jaguar Land Rover will not reveal its UK steel usage but said it had agreements in place
Were one of the biggest users of British steel, said a Vauxhall source. Weve really focused on sourcing our steel from the UK, and its not just the steel but the expertise from Tata which has been crucial for us. Using steel, particularly in todays ultra-modern cars, is a very complex process and Tata Steels technical know-how has been a vital part.
But Jaguar Land Rover, which is itself owned by Tata, refused to say how much of its steel came from the UK.
It said it had agreements in place with Tata Steel, but a spokesman emphasised that it is separate from other firms owned by the Indian conglomerate and makes decisions for the right commercial reasons.
Japanese car-maker Nissan produces the Qashqai, Leaf, Juke and Infiniti Q30 at its Sunderland plant, and almost half the steel used comes from Port Talbot.
Nissan said: Raw materials and parts are sourced for all Renault-Nissan plants in Europe through our Alliance purchasing organisation. This year about 45 per cent of the steel required for production in Nissan Sunderland Plant is sourced from Port Talbot, and the rest from mainland Europe.
BMW-owned Mini said it used British steel in its UK-made cars but would not specify how much, while Honda, which has a plant in Swindon where it produces 600 cars a day, also declined to say how much steel was domestically-produced.
Big steel: Nissan produces cars at its Sunderland plant, and almost half the steel used comes from Port Talbot
Mike Hawes, head of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said: Cost, quality and logistics are key to the efficient sourcing of materials and components by UK manufacturers.
Though the automotive supply chain in the UK is undergoing a resurgence, more work is needed to support and develop provision of local content. Its a focus of both Government and industry through the Automotive Council.
For steel, the Continent represents a competitor. For cars it offers a chance for even more growth. While the appetite of British car-buyers is at record levels March saw 518,707 new cars registered with 16 plates, the second-highest monthly figure since 1997 Continental demand is growing even faster.
There sales are rising 10.1 per cent a year compared with the UKs 5.1 per cent. And almost 80 per cent of cars made in the UK are for export, with nearly 60 per cent of them sold on the Continent and 27 per cent in the US.
British demand is levelling off, said a car industry source. But we are seeing green shoots of recovery in Europe.
British-based manufacturers such as Nissan and Toyota export a huge amount across the Channel and British-made cars have huge popularity across the world. What kind of effect would growth in Europe have on British steel?
Bailout plan: Italy's finance minister Pier Carlo Padoan
Italy is facing a 4billion bailout for its troubled banking system.
The country's bank shares have lost nearly half their value since the start of the year.
Concerns for the sector focus on 290.6billion of bad loans a debt pile that is one-fifth the size of Italy's total economy.
Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Italy's third-largest bank, is considered to be most at risk. Its share price has plummeted 81 per cent in the past 12 months.
The bank was also the EU's worst performer in a risk-testing exercise two years ago and has about 40.4billion in bad loans.
Finance minister Pier Carlo Padoan has called a meeting in Rome today so the fine details of a bailout plan can be agreed.
The proposals, which would be funded by the finance industry, are intended as a last resort to stave off collapse, as Padoan said the banks were strong enough 'to resolve their critical issues themselves'.
But with the Italian government struggling under a public debt burden 132.5 per cent the size of its economy, critics question whether enough can be done.
Berenberg analyst Eoin Mullany told the Financial Times that the Italian banking sector was 'at a pivotal moment in its history'.
Airport development adding to economy, jobs in the region
Pittsburgh may always be known as the Steel City, but a wave of new industries are popping up near its airport to redefine business in the region.
Torin Halsey/Times Record News Dogs of all sizes and breeds will fill the Bridwell Center from April 15-17 for the Obedience Training Club's annual agility trials.
SHARE Katrena Mitchell/Special to the Times Record News Weave poles are a popular park of dog agility trials. The Obedience Training Club's annual agility competition will run April 15-17 at the Bridwell Center. Katrena Mitchell/Special to the Times Record News Agility trail jumps are lowered and raised based on the size class of dogs in the competition. The Obedience Training Club's annual agility competition will run April 15-17 at the Bridwell Center.
By Katrena Mitchell
The J.S. Bridwell Agricultural Center will be running wild with canines April 15-17. That weekend will be the Obedience Training Club of Wichita Falls' annual American Kennel Club-sanctioned agility trials.
Beginning at 9 a.m. April 15, dogs will be running agility courses in two different rings. These dogs and handlers will be competing for the fastest time with the fewest mistakes. Competition will run into late afternoon all three days. Sunday's competition begins at 8 a.m.
This area hosts some of the best agility teams in the country and many will be competing. Entrants will mostly be from the Texas and Oklahoma area but there are usually several from other states represented. There will be the agility person who competes at the national level as well as the weekend warrior who just loves spending time training and competing with their favorite dog or dogs.
A typical agility trial is run where the dogs in the top level classes or ones with the most experience run earlier in the day. Novice dogs run later.
Agility made its way into the hearts of dog enthusiasts back in the 1990s and has quickly gained popularity with all sorts of people. Agility is a great avenue for dog owners to get involved in whether they have a purebred or mixed breed dog. This trial will feature both.
In an agility trial, the dog and handlers team are divided into height divisions based on the stature of the dog. Therefore, small dogs may jump as low as 4 inches and height divisions go on up to 24 inches. An agility course may have over 25 obstacles that the dog and handler team must tackle.
Different types of jumps as well as tunnels, a teeter, chute, a dog walk and an A-frame are all obstacles that will be seen on the courses. And let's not forget the weave poles where a dog has to maneuver in and out of up to 12 upright poles as fast as possible. The dog and handler team in each division that flies through the course the fastest as well as with the fewest faults wins their height and experience level. Speed and accuracy is the key. Novice or beginner dogs are given leeway to make a couple of mistakes while those running the excellent or top level classes can't make any mistakes.
Agility is a great activity for spectators. Except when courses are being built, there is always activity in each ring. There is also a wide variety of dog breeds. From Yorkies and Chihuahuas up to golden retrievers and Great Danes, there will be a dog you can cheer for. You may even catch the agility bug and become interested in classes and training your own dog. The OTCWF hosts those classes for this area.
If you need to do some shopping, there will also be some wonderful vendors selling toys, crate pads, treats, dog food and other miscellaneous dog items for your favorite pet or dog-loving friends.
Admission is free. There will be a concession stand available for refreshments.
Sometimes the excitement and flurry of activity is too much for a dog to handle when they're not used to it. The AKC actually has a rule prohibiting unentered dogs from the venue.
For information on this agility trial or agility classes, contact the OTCWF at 851-0694 or visit their Facebook page.
Here's what to know as the annual dove hunting season approaches
TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS Eighth Street looking west from Indiana.
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By Times Record News
Three Times Record News staff members were recognized at the state level for their work on special projects published in 2015 at the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors' convention Saturday in El Paso.
Business/Metro Editor John Ingle, Chief Photographer Torin Halsey and Digital Content Producer Orlando Flores Jr. received an honorable mention in the AAA Feature Series category for the "Downtown Revitalization" series that ran in print and online in September.
The series focused on the revitalization of four downtown areas in Texas in recent years Nocona, Granbury, Waco, and Bryan highlighting the important behind-the-scenes players, businesses and attractions that helped make their downtowns great again. The series wrapped up featuring Downtown Wichita Falls and its ongoing revitalization projects.
Ingle and Halsey worked extensively with the newspaper designers to create eye-catching spreads for each feature's print edition. Exclusive videos, photo galleries and photo stories were hosted online to further enhance the project.
The series was a key component to the "Imagine Wichita Falls" yearlong series that focused on Wichita Falls' future and what it could be thanks to the efforts of numerous outstanding residents, businesses and organizations in the present. The series focused on Wichita Falls' education, downtown, quality of life and Lake Wichita.
"I'm extremely proud of the work our Times Record News staff accomplished in 2015," Editor Deanna Watson said. "From our coverage of the May flooding to our focus on Imagine Wichita Falls. Both efforts were celebrated this weekend at the Texas APME annual conference. I applaud their efforts all year long."
Flores also placed second in the Infographics category for work he produced for timesrecordnews.com.
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They've never made movies like this.
In most cinematic adventures when the innocents are in peril from villains, it's not other villains who ride to the rescue. It's the good guys. But in winning the Wisconsin primary Tuesday, it was Bernie Sanders galloping in on horseback excuse me, on socialist nonsense to try to save the country from Hillary Clinton.
To be sure, in the Democratic race for the presidential nomination, Clinton is still the odds-on favorite to win. The polls have her ahead in the coming New York primary, and her pile of delegates is pretty darn high. Her greatest fear has to be honesty, though not her own. That's been missing for a long time.
No, what she has to fear is the nonpolitical, frequently demonstrated honesty of James Comey, the FBI director who is closely involved in investigating whether she illegally endangered national security through use of a private email server as secretary of state. If politics are played in the Justice Department to get her off the hook, this official just might resign in protest, conceivably delivering a fatal blow to Clinton's presidential chances.
Sanders might then march to the White House, but would he be better? Not close. What we have in him is a 1960s hippie who never grew up, who accuses others of all kinds of bigotry even as he himself is bigoted against the rich to the point of hateful screeching and whose leftist ambitions would wreck the country if improbably effectuated.
Even some liberal economists say his math is something like two plus two equals one.
The New York Times interviewed a bunch who argued his proposals could expand the federal government by half the largest increase since World War II. What he's talking about is free college for everyone, virtually free health care, largely free child care, more Social Security and still other goodies. All of this could amount to a 50 percent yearly increase or more in spending, say some of the these economists, who also point out that the expansion's generally estimated cost of $18 trillion over 10 years could be higher, as much as $30 trillion, one says.
Sanders says his taxes will pay for it and that they're mostly on the rich, even though the middle class will have to pay, too. He says the middle class will still come out ahead because of benefits that flow their way. Economists quoted in the Times say no they will take a hurtful hit, too.
One of Sanders' own economists makes things turn out OK by estimating, among other happy thoughts, that our economic growth will get up to 5.3 percent. The Times economists say, sorry, but nope. That's a reach and a half. What Sanders' buddies are calculating is "puppies and rainbows," one analyst is quoted as saying, and if you want evidence, look at what happened when Sanders' home state of Vermont tried out his single-payer health system proposal.
It didn't work. It cost too much. It is gone.
What you would actually get with Bernie trying to put his plan into effect is chaos, and what you would get if he succeeded is a debt crisis. What we are already getting is hokum of all kinds, such as talk about a middle-class decline over the past 40 years when James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute says living standards have risen by as much as half. Sanders makes out as if the rich don't pay their share of taxes whereas Pethokoukis notes "the top 1 percent earned nearly a fifth of the national income but paid 40 percent of the federal income taxes."
Many of Sanders' young supporters would love free college. What they need is more colleges that teach that goods and services are never free, that someone always pays.
Jay Ambrose is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service. Readers may email him at speaktojay@aol.com.
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Despite the fact that they are currently bitter opponents, there are a lot of reasons to believe Donald Trump and Ted Cruz could end up working together in the fall campaign.
The basic reason is simple it's in each of their best interests to do so. In fact, we already see examples of pragmatism drawing them together. Both Trump and Cruz are calling for Ohio Governor John Kasich to get out of the race.
Additionally, both Trump and Cruz have a shared interest in keeping the Republican Establishment from stealing the nomination. In every primary other than Kasich's home state, outsider candidates have demolished the insiders. It's clear that GOP voters are rejecting the status quo and that reality is driving support for both the front-runners.
A lot of Republican insiders are hoping for a scenario that will allow a divided convention to ignore both Trump and Cruz to select someone like 2012 nominee Mitt Romney or House Speaker Paul Ryan. Neither would be eligible under the current convention rules, but those rules can be changed at the convention itself.
That effort by the establishment to change the rules gives Trump and Cruz another reason to work together. They will work to insure that their delegates block any such change. Such an effort will protect the voter preferences and restrict the choice to the two men who came out on top during the primary season.
There's been a lot of talk about the fact that neither Trump nor Cruz will have enough pledged delegates to win a majority on the first ballot. That's true, but there will also be hundreds of unpledged delegates who get to vote. That's more than the number of delegates awarded by any single state. Given several weeks of deal making time before the convention, it's quite possible to imagine a first ballot victory for either Trump or Cruz.
Because Cruz has a better organization, he would be heavily favored to win if a second ballot is required. But since Trump is a great deal maker, anything is possible.
So, based upon the recently heated rhetoric, you might expect that whoever loses the convention to storm off with their voters and split the party. But that's not the only possibility. It may not even be the most likely scenario. Even after all the votes are tallied at the convention, there would still be reasons for the two men to work together.
That's because it would be in the best interests of the second place finisher to support the winner. That's what happened at the last contested Republican convention in 1976. President Gerald Ford narrowly edged out Ronald Reagan. Reagan's concession speech was gracious and he worked hard on behalf of Ford all the way until election day.
When Ford lost to Jimmy Carter, Reagan was well positioned for another campaign. Just four years later he took office and became the most significant president of the past half-century. If either of them lose at the convention, both Trump and Cruz will have powerful incentives to follow Reagan's example.
I know it's hard to envision at the moment, but it's quite possible that the Republicans will come out of the convention as a united party committed to defeating the presumed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Despite all the rhetoric, both Trump and Cruz will find it is in their interest to unify rather than divide the party.
Scott Rasmussen is the founder and president of Styrk, co-founder of ESPN and a New York Times best-selling author.
Katie McGrath, right, owner of Tripped Out, help Kayla Hebert shop for her son, Grayson Hebert, 9 months, at the newest business to open in downtown Wichita Falls. The children's clothing store specializes in boys and unisex fashions for infant to 4T.
SHARE Katie McGrath sets up a display at her children's clothing store, Tripped Out, which opened March 19 at 822 Indiana. McGrath says the business will specialize in boys and unisex clothing including graphic T-shirts, European styles, stripes and soft and comfortable items. photos by TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS A family of entrepreneurs. Katie McGrath, owner of Tripped Out and her son, Trip McGrath, center, join McGrath's mom, Brenda Hollis, owner of B&B Upholstery, left, her aunt, Debbie Schwartz, owner of Red Threads, and her grandmother, Jeannine Oliver, right, former owner of the first antique store in Downtown Wichita Falls, Jeannine's Antiques. The first three businesses named are located at 822 Indiana. Tripped Out is a new children's clothing boutique downtown that opened in March in the same location.
By John Ingle of the Times Record News
Katie McGrath's local search for trendy, modern and unique clothing for her son, Trip, was difficult after he was born in December 2014.
She wanted to find something with flare, something that stood out from what was different than already offered here, but would have to go elsewhere or turn to online shopping to find those items. So the Wichita Falls native turned to her family's roots of entrepreneurship and opened her own children's clothing boutique, Tripped Out, to satisfy her tastes and those of others in the area.
"After having my son, I realized there was a shortage of boys clothes in this town," she said Friday at the business's location at 822 Indiana. "People would always say that my son dressed unique. I would always get asked where he would get his clothes. So, I just thought what better time than to bring it here now."
Tripped Out named after Trip because he is the third John Thomas in the family offers an array of graphic T-shirts, capri pants, shoes, headbands and more. McGrath said the items offer a "European style" with varying patterns and stripes.
The store officially opened March 19, and the young mom said it has been a "blast" having the business, even though it can sometimes be a bit overwhelming given her weekday job and being a full-time wife and mother.
McGrath said she has always wanted to open up a boutique, but seriously began mulling over the idea about eight months ago. When she decided to push forward with the new business, there was no other place she wanted to be than Downtown Wichita Falls and in the space that has been occupied by her family for more than 20 years.
First was grandmother Jeannine Oliver, who opened the first antique store in the downtown area more than two decades ago; then mother Brenda Hollis with B&B Upholstery; followed by aunt Debbie Schwartz with Red Threads.
McGrath said her family has been very supportive of her new venture, filling in for the new business owner when she is away from the store. It's also nice, she said, to begin her first business with those who have done it and have been successful.
Oliver closed her antique store a few years back, but still helps out with the other businesses.
"My biggest word to probably describe it is 'honored,'" the third-generation small-business owner said of starting out at 822 Indiana. "They are two very successful businesses here downtown that are both locally owned. I'm just so blessed to be able to work beside them and under them so I can look up to them for all of my entrepreneurship and all of my goals that I have long-term."
Hollis said she is proud of her daughter's decision to open Tripped Out, and it's not surprising for McGrath to do her own thing because it is kind of a family trait or tradition. She said they talked over the idea and after going to market decided this was the perfect type.
"We really didn't know that it would take off like it has," Hollis said. "She has customers a lot during the day, but we enjoy it."
The downtown area for small business was kind of an oasis when Oliver moved in followed by her daughters. Traffic was relatively slow as most of it was from or for those with offices in the city's heart. Nevertheless, the enterprises endured throughout the years and are still in their original location.
McGrath said she couldn't imagine being anywhere else, especially given the resurgence of restaurants, festivals, and business downtown. She said her long-term plans include expanding and, one day, occupying her own building. But, she said, it will remain downtown.
Colonie
They have thousands of hours of volunteer work among them and in doing so have inspired hundreds of people.
They have helped reduce hunger, mentored students, assisted struggling veterans, arranged for burial gowns for babies, advocated for families and children with life-threatening illnesses, helped domestic abuse victims become independent, pushed for social justice, provided humanitarian relief during disasters and built bridges among local faith communities.
Thirteen Capital Region volunteers will be honored for answering the "call to action" at the 2016 Jefferson Awards dinner Tuesday.
Founded in 1972 by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, U.S. Sen. Robert Taft Jr. and Sam Beard, the annual awards are named for Thomas Jefferson and the spirit of excellence in America he embodied. Locally, the annual awards are sponsored by St. Peter's Health Partners, NewsChannel 13 and the Times Union.
The 2016 Capital Region medalists and finalists, who will be honored at a dinner on April 12 at the Century House in Latham, were selected from nominations submitted by area residents since November.
One of the medalists will be named to represent the Capital Region at the national Jefferson Awards event in June in Washington, D.C.
This year's finalists:
Dave Cleveland of Cropseyville. Cleveland has been a volunteer for the Food Pantries for the Capital District for six years. In 2014 alone, he worked with 159 volunteers and gave 6,380 hours of his time to fight hunger. He started a volunteer-based fundraising initiative to put canisters at store registers an effort that raises $10,000 annually. He also helped start other local food drives to help children in summer and to reduce food waste. He responds with gratitude when people have given of their time.
Humera Khan of Niskayuna. Khan has been an advocate for battered women and worked with refugees and with Catholic Charities. She has helped victims of domestic violence become independent financially and emotionally. Active in interfaith groups, including the Children of the Well, an interfaith story circle for youth, and FOCUS interfaith food pantries, she has worked to build bridges. Khan has collected $90,000 and mobilized 500 volunteers.
Vera Michelson of Albany. Michelson has been an activist all her adult life, participating in local organizations supporting racial, social and economic justice and also working for international peace and justice. She is one of the founders of the Whitney M. Young Community Health Center in Albany and ROOTS (Re-Entry Opportunities and Orientations Toward Success) in Albany and Rensselaer counties.
Maureen O'Brien of Albany. When her 6-month-old son, Gabriel, was diagnosed with neurofibromatosis, a rare genetic disorder, O'Brien set out to find programs for his special needs. She learned that Double H Ranch in Lake Luzerne was remarkable for its support for children with life-threatening illnesses and has become one of its greatest ambassadors, serving on its board of directors and counseling families who will face rounds of chemotherapy and social and financial burdens of raising a child with a life-threatening illness.
Patty Reksc of Amsterdam. Reksc is president of the local chapter of Therapy Dogs International and the "air traffic controller" for the 197 members with 233 therapy dogs that visited 161 facilities last year. She arranges for the therapy dogs to go to nursing homes, to colleges during exam week, to a bakery-cafe that employs developmentally challenged people and to visits with families of National Guard members. Patty also organizes blanket drives for veterans and an emergency shelter for children in crises.
Mary Jane Smith of Watervliet. Smith is a co-founder and former executive director of Unity House, which provides services for poor families and those victimized by domestic violence, for children with developmental delays and people living with HIV/AIDS. Previously, when she was a Sister of St. Joseph, Smith was a teacher for two decades. Following her retirement in 1991, after 20 years with Unity House, she continued to advocate for social justice and serve on boards to benefit the disadvantaged. Now an octogenarian, she serves lunch weekly in the Unity House meals program.
This year's medalists are:
Barry Feinman of Niskayuna. Feinman founded Jezreel International, a charity that has shipped $80 million worth of goods to 41 poverty-stricken countries in the past 19 years. He has shipped containers of supplies to regions affected by disasters nationally and internationally. Locally, he has helped veterans and their families by providing them clothing and household items. He also provides families with food, vitamins, clothing and Christmas gifts through items stored in a warehouse.
Tracie Killar of Albany. Killar has worked to reduce hunger and promote academic success for at-risk children living in the South End of Albany. In November 2015, she opened the South End Children's Cafe, where children kindergarten through grade six, most of whom are eligible for free or reduced-price school meals, can go after school to do homework, receive tutoring and participate in enrichment and physical activities. The cafe has served 2,000 meals since it opened.
Grace Roznowski of Albany. A retired nurse, Roznowski, now 95, has been a volunteer in the pediatrics department of the Albany Medical Center Hospital every Sunday since 1971, providing support for children receiving treatment and their families. Upon retiring from the Visiting Nurses Association in 1983, she has been a weekly volunteer there. For more than 30 years she has collected medical supplies and gently used clothing for a health clinic in Mississippi and Native American reservations in South Dakota as well as for local residents.
Lawrence Ruff of Troy. Ruff was among the first volunteer mentors for a local U.S. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics team. He has worked with teams at Shenendehowa and Albany high schools, guiding them as they brainstorm, design and build robots from the ground up in six weeks. This will be his 25th year as a volunteer mentor. A senior systems engineer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Lawrence teaches mechanical engineering and runs the Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory there.
Carol Ann Selkis of Loudonville. Selkis helps families grieving the loss of a baby by providing burial gowns. She started Little Angel Gowns Capital Region by reaching out to the national organization. She seeks donations of wedding gowns and other formal wear, recruits seamstresses, raises funds to buy needed supplies and increases awareness in the community. She has reached out to area churches and schools for help.
Nancy Virkler of Rexford. Virkler leads volunteers at Equinox, Friends of Schenectady County Public Library, Trinity Presbyterian Church and Kingsway Arms Nursing Home. She has volunteered at Equinox's Thanksgiving Community Dinner for 20 years and for the past seven been a coordinator responsible for the 3,500 volunteers who cook and deliver 10,000 meals. She works with nearly 300 community groups and businesses to secure donations of food, products and services.
Also being honored will be one of this year's "13 Kids Who Care," from the program sponsored by WNYT-NewsChannel 13, St. Peter's Health Partners and the Times Union to recognize outstanding young people of the Capital Region for volunteer work and community involvement that touches the lives of people in our region and improves the quality of life in our communities.
Josselyn Roosenberg, a senior at Loudonville Christian School, is being recognized at the April event for her work with Karen refugees area residents who are members of the ethnic minority that have been fled persecution in their homeland of Myanmar (Burma) and refugee camps along the Thailand border. She tutors Karen children and has helped them hold on to their ethnic traditions while ensuring they are welcome in the Albany area.
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Rotterdam
A Rotterdam police officer fatally shot a 30-year-old man who police said slashed a town police officer with a knife.
Police identified the man Sunday night as William Clark.
New York State Police are investigating the incident.
Rotterdam police said they were called to 1061 Roberta Road at 11:30 a.m. Sunday. Neighbors said they heard scanner chatter of a domestic dispute between a mother and her son, with the mother saying her son was having a psychotic episode.
Police said Clark slashed at officers with a knife, striking an unidentified officer in the head.
Rotterdam police said an officer fired a service weapon, killing Clark. Rotterdam Police Chief James Hamilton said the slashed officer had non-life threatening injuries. Police later said he was treated and released from the hospital.
Steve Marco, who lives several houses down the street, said he saw an officer bleeding from the head outside the home. He also said Clark had just moved in recently.
Police tape was hung around the house and officers closed off the road.
Capital Region commuters will have to make adjustments as three presidential candidates come to the area Monday.
In Albany, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump will be at the Times Union Center at 7 p.m.
Traffic will be affected long before the rally begins.
South Pearl Street from Beaver Street to Hudson Avenue will be closed to all traffic from 9 a.m. to midnight.
No parking will be allowed from 8 a.m. to midnight Monday on South Pearl Street from State to Market Street. The ban applies to both sides of the street, said Albany Police spokesman Steve Smith.
The Capital District Transportation Authority is also making some adjustments.
"We will have a reroute for the Trump rally," said CDTA spokeswoman Jaime Watson.
The two bus stops outside the Times Union Center will not run as usual since the road will be closed. Commuters are recommended to catch the bus at Ten Eyck Plaza at North Pearl and State streets.
Earlier in the day, Bernie Sanders will be at the Armory on Washington Avenue. Doors for that appearance will open at 11 a.m.
That too will affect parking and buses.
There will be no parking on Elk Street from Dove to Lark streets from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The bus stop outside the Armory will not be in service from approximately 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., Watson said.
"Folks there are encouraged to use the Dove Street stop," she said.
Despite the impacts, Watson said CDTA is recommending people use its buses to get to the rallies to avoid traffic.
"We're really encouraging people with the Trump rally and the Sanders rally to use CDTA because the city will have so many restrictions in place," she said.
Ohio Governor John Kasich will make two Capital Region appearances.
He will first speak at the La Salle Institute's gym in North Greenbush at 2:30 p.m., with doors opening at 1:30.
At 5:30, he'll be in at the Saratoga Springs City Center on Broadway, with doors opening at 4:30 p.m.
Neither Kasich appearance will affect CDTA routes, Watson said.
Washington
When it comes to nominating presidential candidates, it turns out the world's foremost democracy is not so purely democratic.
For decades, both major parties have used a somewhat convoluted process for picking their nominees, one that involves ordinary voters in only an indirect way. As Americans flock this year to outsider candidates, the kind most hindered by these rules, they are suddenly waking up to this reality. And their confusion and anger are adding another volatile element to an election being waged over questions of fairness and equality.
In Nashville a week ago, supporters of Donald Trump accused Republican leaders of trying to stack Tennessee's delegate slate with people who were anti-Trump. The Trump campaign posted the cellphone number of the state party chairman on Twitter, leading him to be inundated with calls. Several dozen people showed up at the meeting at which delegates were being named, banged on the windows and demanded to be let in.
Backers of Sen. Bernie Sanders, bewildered at why he keeps winning states but cannot seem to cut into Hillary Clinton's delegate count because of her overwhelming lead with "superdelegates," have used Reddit and Twitter to start an aggressive pressure campaign to flip votes.
Javier Morillo, a member of the Democratic National Committee and a superdelegate from Minnesota, said he discovered his email posted on a website called a "Superdelegate Hit List."
The list had an illustration of a donkey with two crossbow arrows behind its head. "I was a little annoyed," he said.
Morillo, who is backing Clinton, said he tried at first to reply to all the emails beseeching him to switch his support to Sanders, the Vermont senator who won 62 percent of the vote in Minnesota's caucuses. But the volume has gotten so high lately, he said, "I haven't been able to keep up."
If supporters of Trump and Sanders feel stymied by the delegate process, that is because it was designed years ago precisely to make it difficult for candidates like them to become their party's nominee candidates who party leaders believe could never win in November.
Like with any private members-only club political parties are not official government entities the party leaders exercise considerable control over which candidate gets their endorsement and the attendant privilege of using their political infrastructure, financial support and loyal voter base, without which winning in November is all but impossible.
In the earliest days of the republic, members of Congress determined the presidential nominees, cutting ordinary Americans out of the process. The national convention system has evolved over more than a century and a half to gradually decentralize the decision-making.
But not completely. The role of Democratic superdelegates was created after the 1980 election to ensure that rank-and-file voters could not easily vote in an activist candidate. Superdelegates include major Democratic elected officials like governors and members of Congress; national and state party leaders; and notable party figures like former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Democrats have added more superdelegates over the years, and this year, they will make up 16 percent of all delegates.
Each of their votes has equal weight to delegates awarded through primaries and caucuses. In New Hampshire, for example, the site of Sanders' first big victory, he won about 150,000 votes and 15 traditional delegates. Hillary Clinton won nine traditional delegates. But because six of New Hampshire's superdelegates are supporting her (the other two are uncommitted), she is effectively tied with Sanders in the state.
Republicans have far fewer superdelegates. But the way the party conducts elections a layered system of contests in each state that selects local delegates who in turn select state delegates who then vote for national delegates can be difficult for newcomers without sophisticated operations to penetrate, as Trump is discovering.
Even if he wins a state, the delegates who are supposed to vote for him at the national convention might privately support one of his opponents, and if no candidate clinches the nomination after the convention's first ballot, these delegates are usually freed from the requirement that they represent the preference of the voters back home. The campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has been working in many states to get his supporters named as delegates, even if they must vote for Trump on the first ballot.
"It's people who are in charge keeping their friends in power," said Tom Carroll, 32, a union plumber who lives in Bethpage, summing up how he viewed the electoral system.
Even if superdelegates did not exist, Sanders would still trail Clinton by more than 200 delegates. And his hopes of catching her in the traditional delegate race are looking thin, with several large states favorable to her yet to vote, including New York and Pennsylvania.
Though Sanders has criticized the "rigged political system," he has been less caustic about the influence of superdelegates, cognizant that he needs to woo them in order to win.
Anxiety over the process is far more acute on the Republican side of the race because Trump, who unlike Sanders is the front-runner in his party's delegate race, stands a chance of not being the nominee. Right now, he is in danger of falling short of the 50 percent-plus-one delegate threshold the Republican National Committee has set in order to clinch the nomination before the convention, a possibility that has started to sink in only recently inside his campaign and among his supporters.
"It's hard to start explaining now," said Curly Haugland, the Republican national committeeman in North Dakota who has tried to draw attention this year to the important role that delegates play. Haugland summed up the collective realization of many voters this way: "These primaries weren't really worth much except maybe to spend a billion dollars."
Brussels
After nearly three weeks of frantic searching, Belgian authorities announced Saturday they had finally identified the elusive "man in the hat" spotted alongside the two suicide bombers who blew themselves up at Brussels Airport: It was Paris attacks suspect Mohamed Abrini.
Belgium's Federal Prosecution Office said the recently detained Abrini the last identified suspect at large from the deadly Nov. 13 Paris attacks had also confessed to being the vest- and hat-wearing man linked to the Brussels bombers whose image had been widely circulated by authorities.
"After being confronted with the results of the different expert examinations, he confessed his presence at the crime scene," they said in a terse statement.
The revelation that a Paris attacks suspect escorted two of the Brussels bombers to their deaths at the city's airport is the strongest sign yet that the Islamic State attackers who brought mayhem to both European cities killing a total of 162 people were intimately linked.
Abrini, 31, was one of four suspects charged Saturday with "participating in terrorist acts" linked to the March 22 Brussels bombings that killed 32 people and wounded 270 others at the airport and in the city's subway.
The prosecutors said Abrini, a Belgian-Moroccan petty criminal who was detained Friday in a Brussels police raid, threw away his vest in a garbage bin and sold his hat after the March 22 bombings.
Prosecutors did not respond to calls seeking further details. A legal representative for Abrini could not be immediately located for comment Saturday night.
Surveillance footage placed Abrini in the convoy with the attackers who headed to Paris ahead of the Nov. 13 massacre that left 130 people dead and hundreds wounded in the French capital.
Abrini was a childhood friend of Brussels brothers Salah and Brahim Abdeslam, both suspects in the Paris attacks, and he had ties to Abdelhamid Abbaoud, the Paris attackers' ringleader who died in a French police raid shortly afterward. Brahim Abdeslam blew himself up in the Paris bombings while Salah Abdeslam was arrested in Brussels on March 18 four days before the attacks there after a four-month manhunt.
Abrini's fingerprints and DNA were not only in a Renault Clio vehicle used in the Paris attacks but also in an apartment in the Schaerbeek neighborhood of Brussels that was used by the airport bombers.
Abrini was also believed to have traveled to Syria, where his younger brother died in 2014 in the Islamic State's Francophone brigade.
One European security official told The Associated Press that Abrini made multiple trips to Birmingham, England, last year, meeting with several men suspected of terrorist activity. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to provide details about the investigation.
Abrini and three other men identified as Osama Krayem, Herve B. M. and Bilal E. M. were all charged by Belgian authorities earlier Saturday with participating in "terrorist murders" and the "activities of a terrorist group" in relation to the attacks. Two other suspects arrested in the last couple of days were released "after a thorough interrogation," the prosecutors said in a statement.
Osama Krayem, identified by prosecutors only as Osama K., is known to have left the Swedish city of Malmo to fight in Syria. The prosecutor's office accuses him of being the second person at the March 22 attack on the Brussels subway station that killed 16 people and of being at a shopping mall where the luggage used in the airport bombings was purchased.
Beihai, China
In the darkness of the tropical waters of the South China Sea, the shabby, blue-hulled Chinese fishing trawler edged closer to what was almost certain arrest for Zhang Deren, the boat's engineer. He was more than 1,000 miles from his home here in southern China.
Earlier that day, the Indonesian maritime police had boarded his boat, accusing the crew of fishing illegally in Indonesian waters. After the rest of the crew was ordered onto their vessel, the Indonesians instructed Zhang, a 53-year-old with a weather-beaten face, to follow in the trawler.
At 2 a.m., after a 12-hour journey to the Indonesian shore, help suddenly arrived. A Chinese coast guard vessel, as big as a naval frigate, pulled alongside Zhang's boat. The coast guard then rammed it, separating it from the Indonesian escort.
"At that moment, I knew I was out of trouble," Zhang said, telling his tale after a weeklong voyage back to his home port here on the Gulf of Tonkin, close to Vietnam.
Indonesia's furious reaction and the resulting diplomatic spat with Beijing that erupted late last month is the latest sign of growing frustration with China over territorial rights in the South China Sea.
The United States and countries in the region are increasingly alarmed by the gambits China is using to strengthen its hand: constructing artificial islands suitable for warships and fighter jets, planting oil rigs in disputed waters and using its coast guard to protect China's fishing boats while they operate in waters claimed by others.
China now boasts the largest coast guard fleet in the world, including two 10,000-ton vessels, known in naval circles as the "monsters" because they are far bigger than anything in the U.S. Coast Guard, said Ryan D. Martinson, a researcher at the China Maritime Studies Institute at the Naval War College in Rhode Island.
China also claims to have the biggest fishing fleet in the world, about 1 million boats, the government says. Recently, China embarked on a massive fishing boat building program, accompanied by fuel subsidies for the fishermen, and the installation of free navigational systems that help the coast guard keep track of the vessels.
Southeast Asian nations are also angry that China's fishing armada, supported by its vigilant coast guard, is plying waters that offer diminishing stocks of fish.
Last month, about 100 Chinese fishing boats were found by the Malaysians inside their waters in the South China Sea, accompanied by two Chinese coast guard vessels, the Malaysian authorities said.
Vietnam said it had recently seized a Chinese vessel, disguised as a fishing boat in the Gulf of Tonkin, that was carrying about 25,000 gallons of fuel to resupply Chinese fishing boats.
The coast guard is responsible for rescuing Chinese fishing vessels when they are discovered in other countries' waters, Martinson said.
Most of the disputes are inside the so-called nine dashes, an area drawn by China in the 1940s that covers more than 80 percent of the South China Sea, though it is not recognized by international law.
In response to China's bold stance, the Indonesian defense minister, Ryamizard Ryacudu, said he would deploy American F-16s to the Natuna Islands to deter what he called "thieves," in reference to the Chinese.
Indonesia's fisheries minister, Susi Pudjiastuti, said Indonesia felt "sabotaged." The Chinese boat was well inside Indonesia's 200-mile exclusive economic zone, which is recognized by international law and overlaps with the nine-dash line.
The members of the Chinese fishing crew were detained on the Natuna Islands, and the most senior members, including the captain, are likely to face charges, Pudjiastuti said.
The Indonesians were justified in their irritation, Martinson said. "China's claim to jurisdiction over waters within Indonesia's exclusive economic zone on the basis of the nine-dash line is preposterous," he said. "When you add the aggressive pursuit to the territorial sea and the ramming, it is very easy to understand the Indonesian anger."
In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry defended the fishing trawler, saying it was operating in "traditional Chinese fishing grounds," the phase China often uses in reference to the nine-dash line.
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Albany
Downtown business operators anticipate high foot traffic on Monday, when thousands of people are expected to flock to the city to hear presidential candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders speak at two rallies within hours of each other in advance of the state's primary on April 19.
At 2 p.m. Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders will host a rally at the Washington Avenue Armory, a venue that can hold up to 4,300 people, and businessman Donald Trump will speak at 7 p.m. at the Times Union Center, which can hold up to 17,500 people. His fellow Republican candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, will also be in the area Monday, but will bypass Albany.
The city used the weekend to prepare for an influx of visitors.
More Information Candidate convergence comes to the Capital Region Monday Sen. Bernie Sanders, Democratic presidential candidate When: 2 p.m. (doors open at 11 a.m.) Where: Washington Avenue Armory, 195 Washington Ave., Albany Info: http://berniesanders.com Donald J. Trump, Republican presidential candidate When: 7 p.m. Monday (doors open at 4 p.m.) Where: Times Union Center, 51 S. Pearl St. Info: http://donaldjtrump.com Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Republican presidential candidate When: 2:30 p.m. Monday (doors open at 1:30 p.m.) Where: LaSalle Institute, 174 Williams Road, Troy When: 5:30 p.m. Monday (doors open at 4:30 p.m.) Where: Springs City Center, Broadway, Saratoga Springs Info: http://johnkasich.com See More Collapse
The Downtown Business Improvement District alerted businesses to road closures and parking restrictions, and Albany's "clean team" swept sidewalks to tidy up the city in advance of an influx of out-of-town guests, said Georgette Steffens, the group's executive director.
Cider Belly Doughnuts put a political spin on its treats, sold on North Pearl Street near the Times Union Center.
The shop advertised its "Cider Bernie" topped with maple buttercream and a honey sriracha drizzle and a "What A Trump" a plain doughnut with chocolate mousse and sea salt caramel truffles on a sign outside its shop. (Other candidates have themed doughnuts on the "ballot," too.)
Employees of local restaurants said they prepared for the rallies by adding staff to Monday shifts and, of course, speculating about what it would be like to have a candidate as a customer.
"It'll be chaos, but let's hope it's organized," said Erika Presher, a bartender at the Pearl Street Pub, less than a half-mile away from the Times Union Center.
Several extra employees will work on Monday to accommodate the anticipated frenzy, Presher said. "It's going to be like a St. Patrick's Day, but people won't be outside drinking."
City Beer Hall will bring on its full staff on Monday, as it does for other large events at the Times Union Center.
The crowd coming on Monday may largely be from out of town, restaurant general manager Josh Grant said on Saturday.
"We're ready for it," Grant said. "It's always exciting to be next to the Times Union Center at events like this."
Additional parking regulations likely will not affect business at the Steuben Street Market, an organic and local food store, said part-time employee Barbara Tonne. "Finding parking is tough here anyway," she said.
Tonne said the intense political dialogue has made the primary season exciting in New York.
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"I would like to have a placard out there saying 'Go Home, Trump,'" she said, later crediting the candidate for the "open and rich" conversation regarding the election that stretched over the last several months.
Taylor Cianciotto, a College of Saint Rose student who has worked at Noho Pizza for three years, said she would be working on Monday evening at the small shop just feet from the Washington Avenue Armory. She said Sanders supporters may drop by the store after the rally.
Her boss, she said, joked that Sanders may turn to the shop for a slice of pizza, too.
"I can only hope," she said, laughing.
Doors will open at the Armory at 11 a.m., and at the Times Union Center at around 4 p.m.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich will also be in the region on Monday, with appearances scheduled at 2:30 p.m. at La Salle Institute in North Greenbush and at 5:30 p.m. at the Saratoga Springs City Center in Saratoga Springs.
Democratic front-runner and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Albany and Cohoes on Monday, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz appeared in Scotia on Thursday.
lellis@timesunion.com 518-454-5018 @lindsayaellis
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Albany
It has been decades since New York's presidential primary really mattered. The state has grown used to political irrelevance.
Within New York, the Capital Region, like the rest of upstate, has long been politically irrelevant, our population and voting power dwarfed by that teeming megalopolis to the south.
So what's coming our way Monday is remarkable. For one day, Albany will be the center of the political universe.
More Information Contact Chris Churchill at 518-454-5442 or email cchurchill@timesunion.com See More Collapse
I'm talking, of course, about the planned visits by Donald J. Trump and Bernard Sanders two men known for drawing massive crowds along with the visits to Saratoga Springs and Troy by John "He's Still Running?" Kasich, a candidate not known for drawing large crowds.
The Bernie and Donald events will be within blocks of each other, with Sanders planning to appear early in the afternoon at the Washington Avenue Armory and Trump scheduled to speak in the evening at the Times Union Center.
Heck, the timing allows for committed devotees of the presidential race to attend both rallies a political doubleheader, of sorts, with very different ideologies on display.
Bernie, as we know, is the quasi-socialist who wants to make America great again by making it more like Sweden and Denmark, comfortable places where the government takes the worry out of life.
Trump just wants to Make America Great Again, no specifics necessary. He's motivated by three core beliefs: Trump, Trump and Trump.
The rallies promise to fill downtown Albany with an interesting clash of cultures, with the supporters of the candidate who hates Wall Street and believes GE is "destroying the moral fabric" of America mingling at bars and restaurants with fans of the candidate who has made capitalistic accumulation the overriding purpose of his life.
It should make for a memorable day. Start looking for parking now.
All of this comes on the heels of visits by Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz or, as they're also known, Hilarious Hillary and Lovable Ted. They may not win your vote, but they are guaranteed to make you smile!
OK, so maybe not.
I didn't make it to the Clinton rally on Monday in Cohoes, an event designed to stave off the growing possibility of a Sanders win in New York an upset that would throw the Democratic establishment into a panic.
But I did get to the Cruz rally on Thursday in Scotia, an event designed to keep Trump from getting enough delegates to secure the nomination a development that would throw the Republican establishment into a panic.
Cruz found a supportive audience at the Mekeel Christian Academy, a red-brick school tucked into a tidy residential neighborhood. But like an iguana at the North Pole, the conservative and deeply religious Republican was away from his natural habitat.
The Capital Region is solidly blue, and the whole limited-government thing doesn't play well in a place with so many state employees. Plus, the region is considered one of the least religious metropolitan areas in the country.
At least some in the Scotia audience were there not because they supported Cruz, but because they wanted to witness the spectacle of a campaign rally or lay eyes on a man they'd seen on television.
Consider the conversation I had with Alexandria Koshgarian, an 18-year-old from Saratoga Springs who was wearing a red Cruz T-shirt and a big pin featuring the candidate's face.
"I'm a Bernie supporter in disguise," Koshgarian said. "I don't agree with much that Cruz says. But I'm here to hear him out and listen to what he has to say."
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In this hyper-partisan age, Koshgarian deserves an award for open-mindedness.
She pointed to her father, who was sitting in the bleachers wearing a Cruz knit hat and waving a Ted Cruz sign. He was really a Trump supporter, she said.
The mind reeled. It was all so confusing.
After the rally, I tracked down Koshgarian's father for his opinion of Cruz's speech.
"It was fantastic," Michael Koshgarian said, noting that he now supported Trump and Cruz about equally and would be thrilled to vote for either in the general election.
Koshgarian seemed to take his daughter's Bernie support in stride.
"My little commie," he said, smiling.
Alexandria Koshgarian has a busy Monday planned. She'll see Bernie during the day and Trump in the evening. She's even hoping to squeeze in a Kasich rally, if she can make the timing work.
It sounds exhausting, but I give her credit. She's making the most of Albany's big day.
cchurchill@timesunion.com 518-454-5442 @chris_churchill
Albany
On paper, New York's second-largest medical malpractice insurance company struggled in 2015: Physicians' Reciprocal Insurers' liabilities surged to $138 million more than its assets, a gap that had been $86 million a year before.
Yet Anthony J. Bonomo, a star federal witness in last fall's corruption trial of ex-Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, has been in talks to sell the company that runs PRI to a firm in California for what could be a significant amount, according to multiple sources. In his testimony, Bonomo pegged the management company's value between $100 million and $125 million.
That's what makes PRI unique in its field, and what some say makes its finances potentially worrisome: PRI's condition can worsen, but the management firm that runs it and rakes in fees doesn't bear the burden.
PRI's underlying finances are not just a matter of concern for Bonomo, however, or the doctors and hospitals that are its customers. Every New Yorker who pays for home, auto or business insurance would foot the bill if the company collapses. Unpaid claims would be paid by the state's insurance company guaranty fund, with the cost ultimately passed on to policyholders.
"Allowing a medical malpractice insurer to operate in the red is terribly risky," said Ellen Melchionni, president of the New York Insurance Association, which represents property and casualty insurers.
In addition, records show that if Bonomo were to hang on to the company and it did collapse, a real estate company he co-owns would still be paid $8 million of PRI's money.
In a detailed series of answers to questions posed by the Times Union, PRI noted it has always been in "good standing" with regulators through its 35-year history and scrupulously followed all of their reporting requests. PRI's surplus often goes up and down "based on runoff from old cases (and) write downs of assets," the statement said. The company said its bottom line is expected to improve in 2016.
"While PRI does operate with a negative surplus due to the low (premium) rates DFS sets for every provider in the state, PRI remains in good standing with (the state Department of Financial Services), able to pay its bills and meet current claims," the company told the Times Union. "PRI has shown positive surplus/balance when rates are set correctly by DFS, and currently has about $1.3 billion in assets."
It's currently impossible for New Yorkers to tell if state government feels similarly bullish about PRI.
As the Times Union reported in March, state insurance regulators have routinely suppressed deep governmental exams they're required to conduct every five years probing PRI's finances even as the exams of PRI's competitors have been released.
A person with knowledge of the workings of the Department of Financial Services told the Times Union that the release of a negative report might cause doctors who currently use the insurer to flee to other companies. State regulators fear such a disruption of the market, the person said, and actuaries for the regulator and regulated have had difficulty agreeing on financial numbers.
The administration of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a major recipient of Bonomo's generous campaign giving, is staying quiet about whether it will eventually release a currently ongoing audit.
Testifying at the Skelos trial under a non-prosecution agreement, the Brooklyn-born Bonomo, 57, explained PRI's financial structure.
PRI was founded in 1981, a rough time for the industry. The Legislature created a law in 1985 allowing medical malpractice insurers to operate at a loss; it has been renewed every few years. The law's survival is a top priority for the lobbyists employed by PRI, as the company is one of two such firms operating in the red in New York.
Just weeks before his arrest in May 2015, Skelos pushed through the latest renewal of the law (good through 2019) as part of the state budget. Skelos had pressured Bonomo in 2012 to hire his son, Adam, to what amounted to a no-show job. Dean and Adam Skelos were convicted in December on eight federal counts connected to quid pro quo arrangements with PRI and two other companies.
Bonomo started working at PRI in 1985, and eventually rose to run PRI's management company. A copy of Bonomo's 1999 employment agreement, posted online by TechAgreements.com, lays out lucrative benefits: a $400,000 salary, a $500,000 signing bonus, performance bonuses, stock, a personal company automobile (specified as a BMW 740 or equivalent) and membership in Long Island's Cherry Valley country club.
In 2006, Bonomo bought the management company that runs PRI, Administrators for the Professions (plus a controlling interest in another company), for about $40 million, according to a news release.
AFP has about 315 employees, including a number of Bonomo's family members. According to a prosecutor at the Skelos trial, employees hired at Bonomo's behest are known internally as "AB Referrals," and were uniquely allowed to work from home something Bonomo denied. Adam Skelos was such an employee.
In testimony, Bonomo described the relationship between the management company and PRI.
Under New York law, reciprocal insurers such as PRI have no actual employees and must be run by an outside management firm led by an attorney in this case, Bonomo.
The reciprocal insurer holds assets and liabilities, while the management company makes its money by selling malpractice insurance, and taking a percentage cut of the resulting premiums. In the case of PRI, a state-approved management agreement means AFP takes a maximum of 13 percent.
AFP "derives its revenue from a percentage of the premium written by PRI," Bonomo testified, pegging that revenue at about $45 million annually.
Terry Cummings, a Manhattan attorney who works extensively on insurance regulation issues, told the Times Union it was "unusual" for a New York insurer to buy management services from an affiliate based on a cut of premiums instead of simply getting paid for the cost of services.
"The regulatory objective is to use premiums to build capital in the insurer to pay future claims," she said, rather than putting premium "into the administrator, outside the reach of claimants and insurers."
During the trial, Bonomo pinned PRI's financial issues on state insurance regulators, who set the premiums that medical malpractice firms can charge doctors. Many insurers believe those premiums are far too low. (In 2007, State Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo approved a 14 percent increase in the rates to "avoid further financial deterioration of the companies.")
Medical malpractice insurers, however, are largely allowed to pick the rates for plans they sell to hospitals. And PRI has gained a reputation for offering cheaper premiums than its competitors.
PRI's main competitor, the largest medical malpractice insurer operating in New York, is Latham-based Medical Liability Mutual Insurance Company. MLMIC is in the black: Its most recent financial filing shows a $1.8 billion surplus. MLMIC and PRI insure most doctors in New York, and many hospitals. If PRI were to go under, MLMIC alone would control much of the market. (While PRI began operating in the 1980s the industry's nadir MLMIC has been operating longer, and had more time to build a surplus.)
As a mutual insurance company, MLMIC's corporate structure is different from PRI: There's no outside private management company that makes money based on the amount of premiums written.
"They have an interest in keeping it healthy unlike PRI, which works to provide for the benefit of its (owners)," said Michael Goldstein, an ophthalmologist and president of the New York County Medical Society, which represents doctors in Manhattan.
In the 2000s, MLMIC lost significant hospital business to PRI.
"They came in and undersold MLMIC at a ton of places," said Goldstein. "Selling at a lower price means you're going to get business but if you're selling premium at too low a price, it catches up to you."
Of course, the resulting liabilities from those sales lay on the books of employee-less PRI not on Bonomo's separate management company that gets the commissions.
PRI said in its statement that its business at Long Island's North Shore University Hospital had come "because we had many of its doctors as clients" and added it was a "competitive business and we did offer good rates to get it." PRI recently submitted a notice with DFS seeking to allow the company to raise its rates at hospitals up to 20 percent although "we have not raised rates to near that level," PRI told the Times Union.
Those are not the only ways in which the financial interests of PRI and Bonomo might diverge.
If PRI were to collapse, a deal involving three Bonomo-run companies means $8 million would go back to a Bonomo-owned real estate company a sum that would be paid by PRI.
According to annual reports, a Bonomo company called AJB Ventures in 2007 purchased PRI's office building in Roslyn, Long Island. AJB Ventures installed PRI's management company, AFP, as the rent-paying tenant.
AFP issued a $7.95 million letter of credit, with PRI's assets serving as collateral.
That means that if PRI were to collapse and AFP were unable to continue paying rent, there is $8 million sitting in the bank waiting to be paid out to the landlord: Bonomo.
"It is standard business practice for any commercial lease that the leasor would ask the leasee to put up a letter of credit," PRI said in its statement. "Anthony and his partner who jointly purchased the building followed this practice, as would any other building owner and PRI fully disclosed the terms of the lease arrangement to DFS."
PRI maintains the outstanding mortgage on the property is much larger than $7.95 million.
It remains a mystery what state financial regulators think about these issues.
The state Insurance Department examined PRI's finances for the years 2000, 2004 and 2009 the first two under the tenure of Gov. George Pataki, the third under Gov. David Paterson. (In 2011, the state Department of Financial Services came into being through a merger of the state's banking and insurance agencies.)
In 2000, Greg Serio was a top official at the Insurance Department; from 2001 to around the end of 2004, he was its superintendent.
When Serio left his government post, he began working for Park Strategies, the lobbying firm owned by former U.S. Sen. Alphonse D'Amato, one of the state's most influential lobbyists. Serio set up the firm's "risk and insurance management practice group," according to the firm's website; he is also a principal in Compass Company Consultants, "a risk management and insurance consulting subsidiary of Park."
Park Strategies began working for PRI's management company in 2004, while Serio was still running the agency. Serio did not discuss PRI's 2004 financial exam with the company while he was superintendent, PRI says, and the never-released report was not actually finished until 2007.
Serio eventually became PRI's "day-to-day" lobbyist, D'Amato said on the stand at the Skelos trial.
"He was the former commissioner of insurance and knows all of the regulations," D'Amato testified. "And Greg Serio has, for all of the time that we've represented PRI, dealt with a lot of regulatory matters in front of the Insurance Department."
New York's Public Officers Law bans former government officials from appearing before the state agencies where they worked for two years in a paid capacity, and also says state employees cannot ever practice, appear before or ever even "communicate" with those agencies on matters over which they were "directly concerned" during their state employment, or which were under their "active consideration."
Serio's two-year ban was lifted after the onset of Gov. Eliot Spitzer administration in 2007, when Serio and Park Strategies registered to lobby for PRI.
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Asked why the 2000 exam wasn't publicly released, Serio told the Times Union he could not remember the specifics, but said such decisions are made "in consideration of a lot of other issues" such as "market stability." (Serio lowered premium rates for PRI and its competitors while superintendent a move that was opposed by those companies.)
In 2014, PRI paid $250,000 to four Albany lobbying firms, including Park Strategies a typical outlay for the company.
With both his own and PRI's funds, Bonomo has been a major donor to politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Cuomo and Pataki. Bonomo acknowledged in testimony that he gives to politicians in order to build goodwill. A horse racing enthusiast who owns a racing stable called Brooklyn Boyz, he was appointed by Cuomo in March 2015 as chair of the New York Racing Association, but took a leave of absence just weeks later after Adam Skelos' no-show job was brought to light.
The Department of Financial Services recently rejected the Times Union's open records request for PRI's three most recent exam reports. (The agency says the final formal steps to make the exams technically "adopted and filed" were never completed, and therefore the records aren't public.)
The agency did provide one report from 1996.
PRI and its Bonomo-run management company said jointly that they "don't know" why the state never finalized or released the reports.
The companies "never lobbied DFS not to release its audits, and we won't lobby DFS not to release the current audit it is conducting," they said, adding they have "no issue with DFS releasing any of the financial documents that both parties review."
Some in the industry also question the value of exams that are publicly released, given that they often come out several years after the period of time the reports are examining.
PRI says its finances are transparent, and noted that it voluntarily submits lengthy explanations of its finances to regulators each year, and that its leadership meets quarterly with those regulators.
DFS spokesman Rich Loconte said the agency was unable to track down anyone who had worked at the Insurance Department who knew why the last three exams weren't released to the public including the one covering 2009.
"We have talked internally," Loconte said. "We cannot determine why in fact the reports were not finalized."
PRI says the company's finances are increasingly strong, the result of an "ongoing effort since 2009 to reform its management, governance, operations, actuarial and claims practices and procedures, and overall financial footing." Its negative surplus was much higher $180 million five years ago, the company says.
In a February 2015 letter to DFS, Bonomo argued that PRI had an improved surplus and reserves, and a strengthened investment portfolio.
Bonomo's letter pointed to a potential thundercloud: the "unprecedented danger" from the growth of largely unregulated, lower-priced "risk retention groups" that cover doctors and hospitals. PRI suggested the Legislature should address the issue by only allowing "admitted carriers" such as PRI to operate, in order to ensure the "highest degree of financial security."
Now multiple sources say Bonomo is seeking to make a deal with a California firm, the Doctors Company, to sell off Administrators for the Professions, the firm that runs PRI. A Doctors Company official, David McHale, said that he would decline comment "until there is actually something substantial to comment on."
PRI declined to comment on "rumors or speculation."
The potential sale of its management company could raise the stakes concerning PRI's next financial exam.
Asked if DFS would approve Bonomo's sale of the management company while PRI was $138 million in the red, Loconte said the agency was not currently prepared to approve any deal.
"We are aware of the potential offer, but it is something we're looking at that will be in the totality of the exam process," he said.
Loconte, however, declined to answers questions about whether the new report would ever be publicly released. He also declined to outline the agency's criteria for suppressing or releasing an exam.
It will be a decision for Maria Vullo, who in January was nominated by Cuomo as the next DFS superintendent; she awaits state Senate confirmation.
"I'm not going to comment on the decision-making right now," Loconte said.
cbragg@timesunion.com 518-454-5303 @chrisbragg1
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Washington
In 1916, the votes of white males mattered because they were almost the entire electorate. The blue-collar portion of that population manned upstate New York's factories from Buffalo to Troy, churning out steel, grain silos, carpets and countless other products.
Fast forward 100 years. The mills are mostly gone and the electoral zone is flooded with women and minority voters, all with priorities of their own. In New York, white males are 28 percent of the state's population over age 18 a far less-dominant force in the changed world of politics.
But for better or worse, the candidacy of New York real estate mogul Donald Trump is changing all that. Now, despite a loss last week in Wisconsin, Trump is going full-throttle to win New York's suddenly crucial 95 delegates in the April 19 primary.
The pundits and politicos have long been agog over Trump's gravitational pull on the white male blue-collar population a wave he could surf all the way to the Republican presidential nomination.
And they're not the only ones wondering why Trump's unguarded rhetoric laced with what critics have decried as overt racism and misogyny is winning over blue-collar guys. Democrats and labor leaders who favor Hillary Clinton also are coping with groups of unionized workers attracted to Trump or U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has long called himself a "democratic socialist."
What makes these voters tick?
"In upstate New York we're all familiar with how the economy has been hollowed out and how it's destroyed our families," said Michael Caputo, a Buffalo-based political consultant who is assisting Trump's New York campaign chairman, former GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino. (Caputo ran Paladino's 2010 gubernatorial campaign.) "People in upstate New York know what it's like to have the economy abandon them."
As a fill-in talk radio host, Caputo says he hears from some voters who think they might vote for Sanders if Trump is not the nominee and vice-versa.
Republicans not supporting Trump have little doubt as to the source of his appeal and the draw of Sanders as well.
"I not only understand (those voters') views but I agree with them," said Rep. Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhook, who is contemplating a gubernatorial bid in 2018. "But I respectfully disagree that Trump is the right guy to address those issues."
Gibson, who is not seeking re-election to Congress, has not endorsed any Republican candidate so far, saying "it's possible I will write in" a name if he can't make up his mind by Election Day.
Many of New York's white males without college or advanced degrees may already have made their minds up, but the impact of that block of votes is open to question.
In New York, with a high percentage of college graduates and those with advanced degrees, the white male blue-collar vote is marginal. High school graduates are 22 percent of the state's total white population ages 25 or over the same percentage as college grads.
Nationwide, Republicans are scared stiff of what a Trump candidacy might mean for the party. The same holds true in New York, although state GOP committee Chairman Ed Cox describes himself and the party structure itself as "helpfully neutral."
"I want the grass-roots of this party to have the satisfaction of deciding who the next president will be," Cox said. "I have faith they will do a good job."
By now, the litany of complaints voiced by supporters of anti-establishment candidates is familiar: Trade deals that move jobs overseas, Wall Street's role in the recession, wage stagnation, distrust of Washington, illegal immigration, and the influence of big money in politics.
But there are a host of historic intangibles beneath all that. Among them are automation increasingly taking humans out of the production loop, a globalized economy that might have taken shape even without those trade deals, and the bewildering pace of technical and social change.
"You take a combination of things perceived as having a negative impact trade, immigration, technology and it's not surprising they're upset and are attracted to the two extremes in the two parties," said Donald Siegel, dean of the business school at the University at Albany.
Gerald Benjamin, a political scientist at SUNY New Paltz, calls it "the expectation phenomenon."
"People don't riot when they're suppressed; they riot when they have unrealized expectations," Benjamin said. "People express discontent not when entirely on their backs, but when they can't seem to get back to where they expect to be."
In New York, the latest Siena Research Institute and Quinnipiac University polls show Trump holds a comfortable double-digit lead over Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, while former U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, who made New York her adopted home, leads Sanders by a still significant margin.
Sanders and Trump are on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, but their New York-accented tough talk particularly on trade is catnip for less-skilled workers buffeted by flat pay, economic uncertainty and a belief that their children face a world of diminished opportunity.
But could New York be an exception?
Unlike workers in the Rust Belt, its blue-collar workforce has found relative stability in advanced manufacturing, some of it through joint SUNY Polytechnic Institute projects in Albany, Utica, Syracuse and Rochester.
The first SUNY nanotech building then part of UAlbany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering opened in 1993 with seven employees; it has morphed into a sprawling enterprise of 4,000 employees. GlobalFoundries in Malta similarly employs 3,000 in computer chip-making. Workers with less than a four-year college degree make up 60 percent of both workforces.
In addition, SUNY Poly's joint projects in Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo and Utica employ 15,000; about 60 percent do not hold four-year college degrees.
Although manufacturing employment in New York overall has yet to surpass pre-recession levels of a decade ago, it is up 6 percent in the Albany-Schenectady-Troy region over three years ago. Even hard-hit Buffalo, the target of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's most robust upstate economic development efforts, is up slightly.
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Modern technology has rendered the old labor-intensive assembly line obsolete, but manufacturing jobs do exist for workers with the right training.
"We can't meet the demand of area businesses," said David Larkin, who teaches advanced manufacturing technology at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy. "I have CEOs come here and the only thing I hear them say is, 'Dave, I can't find enough people with skills to do the job. If I had them, I could double my business.'"
The HVCC program graduates about 100 students a year, all of them qualified to work in high-skill, high-wage manufacturing, Larkin said.
"I don't see jobs as Republican or Democrat," he said. "Manufacturers do not have any problem paying good wages for workers who have the right skills."
Nevertheless, an uptick in high-tech production is hardly enough to compensate for decades of losses in manufacturing across upstate.
A portion of New York's blue-collar population may see itself as too old for retraining but too young to retire.
"People have given up," said Caputo. "They're contracting, working off the books. The cost of living is low and they're not looking anymore."
The attraction of Trump and Sanders shows the blue-collar population is concerned with the issues that affect them, not the ideological standards of either party.
"I'm as conservative as they come, but the fact Donald Trump says positive things about Planned Parenthood, or that he's not a neocon ready to go to war, that doesn't bother me," Caputo said. "None of that matters because he cares about what makes people angry the most."
But at least one GOP leader in New York is hoping that whatever the ideological divisions, the state's blue-collar population will continue to find a home in the Republican Party.
"This is very important constituency of the state Republican Party, and always has been," said Cox, who married President Richard Nixon's daughter Tricia in a 1971 White House wedding.
"My father-in-law called them 'the silent majority,'" Cox said. "And Trump labels them that way too."
dan@hearstdc.com 202-263-6419 @danfreedma
THE ISSUE:
The federal government considers tighter privacy rules for broadband companies.
THE STAKES:
Consumer data continues to grow as a commodity, privacy become an increasingly rare one.
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If you don't trust Google with its massive data collection capabilities, you can use another search engine. If you don't want websites tracking you, you can disable cookies. If you want extra privacy, you can use browsers or programs that wipe your tracks clean.
But there's one entity whose gaze you can't avoid if you're on the Web: your Internet service provider.
ISPs can track most of what you do in cyberspace websites and pages you view, social media sites on which you interact, game sites you play on, news and opinions you read, shopping sites you use. If, like most people, you don't use encryption, they can read what you send in communications like emails. And they can also track where you access the Internet from your home, a doctor's office, and so on.
It's doubtful your ISP views such detailed information; what they're mostly interested in is metadata, data that more generally describes that detailed data. They can use it to try to sell you more of their services or products, or sell it to third parties looking to sell you their wares or services.
That may or may not bother you. But it disturbs enough people that the Federal Communications Commission is looking to give customers a greater measure of control over how ISPs use such information. Predictably, telecom companies aren't happy.
Neither are we, not entirely at least, though for different reasons.
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The FCC's proposed privacy rules would require ISPs to allow customers to opt in to third-party sharing in other words, they would have to get your explicit consent to share information about you to other companies. They would not, however, have to do this with their internal use of the data, or to share it with affiliates.
Telecom companies argue the opt-in rules would put more restrictions on them than companies like Google or Facebook are subject to. But that's apples and oranges; customers can drop Google, Facebook, or pretty much any Internet service if they want and find another similar site. In many areas of the country, they don't have that choice when it comes to changing their ISP. Moreover, even when there is a choice of ISPs, switching is usually more than a click of a mouse canceling contracts, paying penalties, changing equipment.
The FCC should side with consumers, not the telecoms, on this. It should require that customers have all the options those for opting in and those for opting out, on a single Web page in brief, simple language, and be able to simply click yes or no. And this rule should apply not just to broadband but to wireless companies that provide Internet access for phones and tablets.
In an age when Internet access is increasingly essential, and when privacy seems more and more elusive, the FCC should do all it can to at least give consumers a choice of how much they want to surrender.
You can read the proposed FCC privacy rule at http://tinyurl.com/zofql7e. To submit a comment, go to http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs.
By Noel Dundon
The Reserve Defence Force is currently recruiting and is looking for men and women aged 18-33 to join their ranks.
The RDF (formerly the FCA), from its base in Templemore is encouraging locals from Thurles, Templemore, Roscrea and the surrounding areas, to consider signing up and enjoy the very fulfilling role of a reserve defence force member, which could lead to a full time career in the military or in An Garda Siochana.
One man with over forty years experience in the field is former Mayor of Thurles, John Kenehan who said that he has absolutely no regrets about his decision to join up when he was still a boy.
Acting Company Sergeant, John encourages anybody who would like to consider the RDF to check out the website www.military.ie
Recruits will be subjected to the same stringent examinations as permanent defence force members and this means that following application, there will be medical examination, fitness test and an interview to test suitability.
After acceptance, recruits will be placed on modular training culminating in a two week camp at a military barracks, John said.
The camp process will help shape and mould members in terms of the discipline of correct dress, presentation, handling of arms, marching and footdrills etc. There will also be the issue of military clothing and uniforms for private recruits.
A number of high profile local men moved to the permanent defence forces from the FCA including the likes of Comdt Joe Gleeson who led Company 3 at the Easter Rising Commemoration in Dublin - he had been trained by John Kenehan as a member of the FCA in Thurles, and John was under his command for the Easter commemoration.
It was an extremly emotional event and I could feel the eyes welling up and the throat tightening when the GPO came into view. I have only two years left in the RDF as I have to retire at 60 and it was a very special event to have been part of, John said.
Elements of the training involves learning to drive a range of vehicles, experiencing the medical corps, map reading, dealing with arms, leadership, management and a whole range of other life skills which would be very necessary in the jobs market.
Indeed, many employers would be very impressed with a CV which comes with RDF membership as it immediately suggests a driven person, who is willing to take orders, and carry out a range of duties.
We train two hours per week in the Templemore barracks on a Tuesday evening and then once a year we engage in a paid two week training programme in camp. It is a magnificent experience, but it is hard work too, with late night and early morning work, John said.
Apart from the many ceremonial duties the RDF participates in, they can be called in at any stage to act as relief to the army. Members were on duty as support to the army most recently with the flooding crisis which hit the country during the winter.
If anyone is interested is applying, have a look at the website or have a chat with any member of the RDF. They can also ring the barracks in Templemore where somebody is on duty at all times, John Kenehan said.
Interested? Why not give it some consideration.
Kansas City Prison Industrial Complex Protest
A message from Kansas City activists on their recent protests . . .
"Got a couple Video's here of a dozen citizens joining withholding signs supporting Texas prisoners who are on lock down for refusing to work any longer for slave wages. At least five Texas prisons were involved in the shut down. Phones are shut down and family is not able to contact their members inside these prisons. The Free Alabama Movement inside Holman Prison has called a national prison strike on Sept 9th."
Developing . . .
Shared by MD: "Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander joined with #MDPAAC's 10th Annual Caucus on 4/7/2016. Thank you Jason Kander for your time with us and our community. Jason Kander is running for United States Senate and MDPAAC (Missouri Democratic Party Asian American Caucus) officially endorsed his candidacy."
Sundays are often for reconciliation and this morning we'd like to feature two political powerhouses connected to Kansas City, smiling for the camera while shaking hands and mending fences.Take a look . . .This photo is a big deal.Why?Not so long ago, during a contentions Missouri SecState race . . . These two squared off,and ultimately Kander won the office handily.Now,and many of the same voters who attended theLike it or not, for better worse and because it's important to understand the part our local Democracy plays in the big picture;. . .You decide . . .
Greece plans to tell thousands of migrants that it loves them to persuade them to willingly evacuate a huge makeshift camp at the port of Piraeus ahead of the busy tourism season
Greece plans to tell thousands of migrants that it loves them to persuade them to willingly evacuate a huge makeshift camp at the port of Piraeus ahead of the busy tourism season, officials said Friday.
But it vowed that the massive port, gateway to the Aegean islands for hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers every summer, will be emptied in a few days.
Do not lose your courage, we stand by you, we love you...! reads a leaflet that will be distributed at the port from Monday, the merchant marine ministry said.
The leaflet in Arabic, Farsi, Greek and English urges migrants not to trust smugglers and to refrain from violence in the wake of several brawls between rival nationalities at the port in past weeks.
Do not despair. Remain calm. Make sure that no violent incidents take place among you, it says.
The port of Piraeus will be emptied in a few days
Although Greek authorities have so far pledged not to use force against the migrants, the document says that in a few days the port of Piraeus will be emptied (evacuated).
The authorities offer few guarantees as to the migrants' future beyond the provision of accommodation and healthcare at organised migrant facilities.
Since other European states have closed their (borders) it is true that nobody can be sure for the exact course of events to come, the leaflet says.
Greece is running out of time to clear the port before the celebration of Orthodox Easter on May 1, a period of busy traffic to the islands through Piraeus.
The port of Piraeus cannot host you anymore and you have nothing to win by remaining here, the flyer says.
The port of Piraeus will have to service significant volumes of traffic
From now on, the port of Piraeus will have to service significant volumes of traffic of vehicles and passengers, it adds.
According to the government, there are still over 4,600 people in the makeshift camp of Piraeus that has taken over a number of passenger terminals.
Overall, there are over 52,000 people trapped in Greece after Balkan states further north closed their borders to migrants.
Efforts to persuade the migrants to relocate from Piraeus to other camps have so far met with only limited success, as only a few hundred people have left, fearing that they will be trapped inside closed camps under police guard.
Source: AFP
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
Egypt will reduce spending on fuel subsidies by nearly 43 per cent in the 2016/17 budget due mainly to lower global energy costs, officials said on Saturday.
Finance Minister Amr al-Garhy told a news conference state energy subsidies would fall to 35 billion Egyptian pounds ($3.94 billion) from about 61 billion pounds in the 2015/16 budget.
Consumers reacted angrily when the government cut spending on energy subsidies in mid-2014, a measure that caused domestic prices of natural gas, diesel and other fuels to rise by as much as 78 percent. They were reduced again in the current budget.
However, the deputy finance minister for fiscal policy said a decline in international oil prices would account for the bulk of the reduced subsidy spending in the next fiscal year.
"Most of the savings in petroleum product subsidies will be a result of lower global oil prices," the deputy minister, Ahmed Kojak, told Reuters.
"There is also a saving of about 8-10 billion (Egyptian) pounds that will come as a result of new reforms that the Petroleum Ministry will outline in agreement with us," he added.
Egypt is struggling to revive its economy since a popular uprising in 2011 shook investor confidence and drove tourists and foreign investors away. Its foreign currency reserves stood at $16.56 billion in March, down from about $36 billion in 2011.
The government has been trying to cut subsidies, which eat up a big chunk of the budget.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has approved a draft state budget that reduces the budget deficit in the 2016/17 fiscal year to 9.8 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) from the current 11.5 percent. Reuters
Egypt and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement late on Saturday to set up a SR60 billion ($16 billion) investment fund among other investment agreements including an economic free-zone to develop Egypt's Sinai region, Egyptian state television reported.
The signing of the agreements took place in Egypt's Abdeen palace in the presence of Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Saudi's King Salman, during a rare four-day visit to Egypt.
Egypt has struggled to spur economic growth since the 2011 uprising ushered in political instability that scared off tourists and foreign investors, key sources of foreign currency.
Egyptian state TV said the agreement was to establish "a Saudi-Egyptian investment fund with a capital of SR60 billion between the Saudi Public Investment Fund and the entities belonging to it and the Egyptian government and the entities that belong to it."
A memorandum of understanding was also signed between the Saudi Public Investment Fund and the Egyptian International Cooperation Ministry to set up an economic free-zone in Sinai. No other details were announced.
The two countries also signed agreements to develop a 2250 Megawatt electricity plant with a cost of $2.2 billion, set up agriculture complexes in Sinai and develop a canal to transfer water, a statement from the Presidency said.
The statement also said that a company was set up to develop 6 sq km of the industrial zone around Egypt's Suez Canal worth $3.3 billion, without giving further details.
The investments are part of a change in strategy from Saudi Arabia to focus more on financial support that will also benefit Saudi Arabia with return on investment.
Saudi Arabia, along with other Gulf oil producers, has pumped billions of dollars, including grants, into Egypt's flagging economy since the army toppled President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.
Some of the projects announced on Saturday include private sector investments. Last week the deputy head of the Saudi-Egyptian Business Council told Reuters that Saudi businessmen are investing around $4 billion in projects in Egypt and have already deposited 10 percent of that sum in Egyptian banks.
Egypt is aiming for direct foreign investment of around $8-$10 billion in 2015/16.
On Friday, King Salman announced that a bridge connecting Egypt and Saudi Arabia would be built across the Red Sea. No details were given.
Egypt also signed development agreements with Saudi Arabia worth $590 million, Egyptian International Cooperation Minister Sahar Nasr said on Friday.
She said the agreements, signed with the Saudi finance minister, covered development in the Sinai peninsula, agriculture, housing and a university.
The agreements also include a memorandum of understanding between Saudi Aramco and Egypt's Arab Petroleum Pipelines Company SUMED. Reuters
Qatar Insurance Company (QIC) has partnered with Qatar Foundation for Social Work Organization for a an upcoming seminar on sustainable development.
The two-day 'Arab conference on the role of civil society's in the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030' is being held on April 20 at Qatar National Convention Center (QNCC).
QIC Group senior deputy president and CEO Ali Al Fadala signed the agreement with Amal bint Abdullatif Al-Mannai, CEO of Qatar Foundation for Social Work and Head of the Steering Committee.
Commenting on the partnership, Fadala said: "We are pleased to be partnering with Qatar Foundation for Social Work Organization on their noble mission and take pride in supporting all activities and initiatives which serve to enrich the Qatari society. We extend full support to QFSW for accomplishing its mission and set goals."
Amal said QFSW will work hand in hand with the Qatari insurer to help support and develop social action, and promote the sustainability of family and community cohesion as well as human development in Qatar.
"This is in line with QFSW Vision and Mission of empowering and developing civil society organizations," she added.-TradeArabia News Service
Bahrain-based Manara Developments Company is set to launch a unique range of its properties at the Gulf Property Show 2016, the boutique showcase for real estate and property developments which opens this month in Bahrain.
The event is being organised by Hilal Conferences and Exhibitions (HCE) under the patronage of HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the Prime Minister of Bahrain, from April 26 to 28 at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre.
On the upcoming show, managing director Dr Hasan Al Bastaki said: "Manara's participation as a strategic partner in this real estate event, portrays its commitment to the real estate sector, as this exhibition, which achieved a growth of up to 70 per cent from 2013, is an annual opportunity for industry players, as well as prospective owners to meet and address the industrys latest developments and trends."
Dr Al Bastaki said Manara will exhibit three major residential projects one of which is a mixed-use development Hasabi project offering breathtaking seafront views.
Also at the expo, Manara aims to introduce a new sales phase of its Investment Gateway Bahrain project that offers opportunities for ownership for Bahraini as well as non-Bahraini companies and individuals, a feature that makes the project, and the kingdom an ideal base for a wide array of light industry and logistical support on both the local and regional level.
Launched two years back, Investment Gateway Bahrain is a major initiative by the company to encourage and support investments in the kingdom, with a particular focus on foreign investments.
In addition, amongst the projects that will be showcased at the exhibition, include Kenaz Al Bahrain featuring 64 residential units spread over eight four-floor apartment buildings, in addition to Wahati, a subproject of Wahat Al Muharraq that was initially introduced over three phases since 2011, offering a total of 227 villas of various sizes and designs and targeted at middle-income earners.
According to him, the project offers apartments that were specifically designed to meet the requirements of modern Bahraini families while maintaining the common trend towards vertical expansion to address the scarcity of land and thus serving a greater population within the available space and yet meeting the needs and requirements of young Bahraini families.
Dr Al Bastaki said Manara was amongst the first companies to join the partnership with the Ministry of Housing more than two years ago in line with the leaderships directives towards the national social housing strategy.
Through this partnership, Manara extended its support towards the efforts of the Ministry of Housing in providing appropriately priced housing to suit the modern familys needs and achieve social stability.-TradeArabia News Service
Saudi Arabia's King Salman on Saturday (April 9) laid the foundation stone of the Beouth Islamic City, which includes residential complexes as well as a dormitory for up to 30,000 students, at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo.
The king, who was accompanied by a number of princes and ministers, was received by Grand Sheikh of Al Azhar Ahmed Al-Tayeb and a number of officials, reported the Arab News.
He performed the greeting prayer at the 1,000-year-old Al-Azhar Mosque and was briefed on the mosques restoration project.
In 2014, Saudi Arabia had given funds to Egypt for the restoration work at the mosque and university, and for establishing a dormitory for foreign students.
Later in the same year, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi allocated land for the new city in New Cairos fifth settlement district, said the report.
Iran plans to export seafood, including caviar and shrimp, to the US and Canada in the Iranian year to March 2017, a senior official said in a report.
There is no obstacle in the export of seafood products to the US, Hassan Salehi, Iranian Deputy Minister of Agriculture, was quoted as saying in an Iran Daily News report, citing Tasnim News Agency.
He noted that Iran is targeting new consumer markets for caviar and shrimp in Europe, Southeast Asia, the US, Canada and Russia.
In January, Salehi announced that Iran has the capacity to export 100,000 tonnes of seafood to Russia, saying Russian demand is so high that it outstrips Iran's exports.
Russia plans to replace Turkish foodstuffs with Iranian, Azerbaijani and Abkhazian goods to avoid food shortages following Moscow's economic sanctions on Ankara, added the report.
Emirates Modern Poultry Co (Al Rawdah), the first poultry farm in the UAE to receive the Halal certificate from Emirates Authority for Standardization and Metrology (ESMA), has announced that it is investing Dh120 million ($32.6 million) as an initial investment in its new farm in Abu Dhabis Liwa area.
The announcement was made during a press conference held on April 10, at the Fairmont on Dubais Sheikh Zayed Road.
During the event, Al Rawdah signed contracts with LAE-Anlagenbau for manufacturing production machinery; Amandus Kahl for designing and building feed mills; and Prompt Contracting for contractual works, added the statement.
Phase 1 of the Liwa project has already started, and with the completion of the whole project, a major step will be taken in food security concerns as the farm production will reduce Al Rawdahs reliance on imported hatching eggs by 50 per cent thus boosting UAEs food security and creating an ecosystem for sustainable production, it said.
The farm will follow global best practice where animal welfare and environmental considerations take centre stage. The 5 million m2 Liwa farm will house parent stock comprised of six hen houses with 7,000 birds in each. It will also include a feed mill built to cater to the needs of local farmers livestock as well, it stated.
Present at the conference, Al Rawdahs top management team also highlighted the healthy growth that the poultry farm has seen in its overall operations in 2015 compared to 2014. The rise in net profits coincides with increasing turnover and sales growth for the operation. Turnover hit Dh180 million ($49 million) in 2015, with a 10 per cent increase in sales expected for 2016. At the same time, the company is pursuing internal efficiencies and driving excellence in all operations. A reduction in imports will result in a 20 per cent operating cost reduction, further added the statement.
Abdalla Al Owais, chairman of Al Rawdah, said: We are very proud to announce the launch of our new Liwa facility, which will be of tremendous long-term benefit to both our companys operations and the UAEs poultry sector.
The country as a whole will benefit from increased food security and sustainable development through a state of the art facility that can produce its own eggs, hatch its own chicks and guarantee long-term sustainability and excellence. It gives us the capacity to house more poultry in world-class conditions to meet market demand, he said. TradeArabia News Service
Iraq is planning to import cooking oil from Egypt, the trade ministry said on Sunday, as Baghdad moves to reduce its dependence on Turkish products amid political tension.
An Iraqi government trade delegation is holding talks in Cairo to buy cooking oil for the monthly food ration that the authorities supply for free to the population, the ministry said in a statement on its website.
The Iraqi trade ministry in December said it planned to reduce government imports of cooking oil from Turkey.
Baghdad objects to a deployment of Turkish troops in northern Iraq that Ankara says is part of efforts to fight Islamic State. - Reuters
Sheraton Amman Al Nabil Hotel has appointed Iva Trifonov as the propertys new general manager and the area manager of Starwood Hotels & Resorts in Jordan.
With this appointment, which coincided the International Womens Day, Trifonov has become the first female general manager in the Jordanian five-star hotel sector.
This appointment confirms Sheraton Amman Al Nabils belief in asserting the role of women working in the hospitality industry. It also emphasizes on the eligibility of women to be in leadership positions and paves the way for other talented women to take lead in the future, said a statement from the hotel.
Trifonov started her career in 1986 as floor supervisor of the Sheraton Sofia Hotel Balkan. She has built her career experience from the bottom up, and her work has taken her around the world from Bulgaria, Uganda, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Poland, it stated.
Prior to moving to Jordan, Trifonov was general manager of the Sheraton Sopot Hotel, a position she has held since 2009. In her new role, she will not only lead the team at the hotel but also drive the expansion of Starwood Hotels and Resorts with the following four new hotels to be opened in 2016 - The St. Regis Amman, W Amman Hotel, Al Manara Aqaba and The Westin Saraya Aqaba.
In her meeting with the staff, Trifonov said: "Im looking forward to work hand in hand with all the associates of the hotel, to share experiences and continue the journey of success the hotel has started 15 years ago."
"Sheraton Amman Al Nabil was the first Sheraton to open in Jordan, and over the years helped raising the bar in the hospitality industry of the country. I am here to drive that success further and be part of the opening of new Starwood hotels in Jordan," she added.-TradeArabia News Service
Our Correspondent
Lalru, April 9
Acting on a tip-off, the Handesra police seized 760 bottles of liquor that were being stacked in a container near Basoli village.
According to Bharat Bhushan, in-charge, Handesra police station, about 400 bottles of liquor were seized. Another 30 boxes of liquor were also seized that were hidden in a container at Basoli village at the same place.
He said: We seized about 760 bottles of liquor that were being stacked in a container.
The police reportedly revealed that the illegal liquor was being smuggled from this place to different areas.
Police sources said a case under various sections under the Punjab Excise Act was registered against unknown persons and the investigations were on.
However, the police are trying to ascertain as to who was trying to smuggle the liquor.
Rifat Mohidin
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, April 10
Outstation students at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Srinagar today decided to continue their agitation, saying the authorities had failed to fulfil their demands.
The protesting final-year students met on the campus and decided not to end the agitation till major demands were met and they were given full assurances by the administration.
The meeting continued for two hours and we decided to continue the agitation till our demands are met, said one of the students who did not want to be named. He added that they were not satisfied with the governments approach towards the issue so far.
Section 144 continued to remain in force in and around the campus to prevent the protest. However, the students took out a protest march in the evening to press for their demands.
We were not allowed to gather in the lawns, but after a meeting, we protested. Excessive force was used on us some days ago. The officials should be booked. Nothing has been done so far, said another student.
Officials issued a notice to the students who wanted to go home, saying their exams would be held later. Students representatives said they would submit the application en masse for permission to go home, which had been signed by 1,700 students so far.
Till the time we are here, we will continue to boycott classes. Even if we go home, we will not come back till our demands are met with full assurances, said one of the students leading the agitation.
The college administration had been trying to reach out to students to defuse the tension. They said a student grievance redress system had been notified, which would address issues like their marking and evaluation on priority.
Students expressed the apprehension that their grading would be adversely affected due to the unrest in the college. We are making sure that their problems are addressed, said an official at the institute.
Under pressure to end the crisis, the government had ordered a time-bound inquiry. However, it ruled out any possibility of shifting the campus from Kashmir, which continues to be one of the major demands of the non-local students.
Trouble began at the institute after some students celebrating Indias defeat in the World T20 allegedly threw stones at the NIT hostel. The following day, a group clash ensued and the NIT was closed.
Guwahati, April 10
The BJP raises the issue of infiltration from Bangladesh into Assam just like it flags the Ayodhya issue nationally ahead of every election, according to Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi.
He says the BJP rakes up the illegal migration issue and the Ram Temple before each election, but does not want to solve them because of vote-bank politics.
Actually, they (BJP) remember the infiltration issue always just before the election. In Assam, the issue is like what Ram Mandir is for them nationally. They will never solve it but will keep alive the issue for doing vote-bank politics, Gogoi told PTI in an interview.
In its bid to woo indigenous Assamese voters, the BJP has given infiltration a major space in its campaign agenda during the ongoing Assembly poll and is attacking the Gogoi-led Congress government of encouraging illegal immigration from Bangladesh for getting votes of Bengali-speaking Muslims.
Questioning the role and motive of the saffron party, Gogoi accused the BJP-led NDA government of not doing anything to solve the problem despite being in the power twice.
You (BJP) were at the Centre twice. Your partner AGP was in power twice in the state when you were at the Centre.
Why did you not take any action? asked the veteran Congressman.
Gogoi said, You have your party units in every district and town. If there are so many infiltrators, then why are you not informing or complaining to the police or to the local authorities?
Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah, almost all BJP leaders have been attacking the Congress of being sympathetic to Bangladeshi infiltrators, while the Congress is claiming credit of expanding border fencing and updating the National Register of Citizens under the Supreme Court guidelines.
When pointed to the gradual change in Assams demography, Gogoi said, Yes, demography of Assam is changing.
But is it changing because of influx or population explosion due to illiteracy? We have to go and address the actual cause of this problem.
According to a 2011 Census report, Muslims constituted 34.2 per cent of Assams population compared to 30.9 per cent a decade earlier.
Assams nine out of 27 districts are now Muslim-majority, compared to six districts in 2001. PTI
Kolkata, April 10
The Congress "will not have many reasons to celebrate" after investigations into suspected wealth stashed in offshore companies are complete, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Sunday.
There is a very impartial probe going on and it is a multi-agency probe. When the details of the probe come out, the Congress will not have many reasons to celebrate," Jaitley said.
He also refused to keep away from the investigations, a demand rival parties Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party have made to ensure they was done impartially.
"I have not understood their argument," Jaitley said.
The Congress had demanding investigations monitored by the Supreme Court after an Indian newspaper The Indian Express claimed some 500 people held wealth in offshore companies.
We don't believe in the agencies of Arun Jaitley. The government has set up a multi-agency panel to investigate the matter but an independent probe is not possible. We, therefore, demand he recuse himself from any probe involving the 'Panama Papers' leaks," senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had said recently. "How will the government conduct an independent probe in the Panama Papers leaks when the finance minister himself awarded a contract to Twenty First Century Media Private Limited as DDCA president (to construct VIP boxes at Ferozeshah Kotla here). Hence, we demand an independent probe which is possible only by a Supreme Court-monitored Special Investigation Team.
Dubbed Panama Papers, investigations into vast stash records from Panamanian legal firm Mossack Fonseca by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalist named several world leaders and celebrities as having money stashed abroad in offshore companies, among them several people close to Russian President Vlamidir Putin, relatives of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Pakistans Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and British Prime Minister David Camerons father.
Some prominent Indians who found themselves on the list were Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan; his actress daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan; India Bulls Sameer Gehlaut; DLFs KP Singh; Vinod Adani, the older brother of Industrialist Gautam Adani; politician Shishir Bajoria from West Bengal; and Anurag Kejriwal of Loksatta Party.
Internationally, the leak has already claimed one casualty: Iceland's prime minister, former journalist Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, first resisted, then gave in to mounting pressure to step down after the documents purportedly showed that he and his wife bought a company in the British Virgin Islands in 2007.
The reports, a series of findings published by the newspapers, has come at a time when the current Indian establishment claims it has made tax evasion priority. Agencies
New Delhi, April 10
The Indian Navy and the IAF have deployed six helicopters and one Dornier aircraft to help in rescue operations at the Kerala temple where a fire has left over 90 dead.
The IAF has deployed four choppers, including Mi17 and Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH).
The Indian Navy is deploying one Dornier and two ALH with medical teams from the southern naval command.
It has also deputed three Naval shipsINS Kabra, Kalpeni and INS Sunayna RPT Sunaynawith medical stores to Kollam coast to give medical assistance to the injured.
They will be deployed in consultation with local administrative authorities, a Navy spokesperson said.
Surgical teams have also been put on standby at the Naval Command Hospital in Kochi. PTI
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, April 9
In a subtle message to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who won a historic mandate for the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, President Pranab Mukherjee today said democracy was not just about numbers but also consensus building.
Delivering the first Arjun Singh Memorial Lecture today in the memory of the late Congress leader, the President reiterated his message of tolerance saying Indian diversity was a fact which couldnt be turned into fiction to suit individual whims.
Top Congress leaders, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi in presence, Mukherjee said tolerance had worked well for India and was the only thing that would work.
The President was calling for acceptance of contrarian views in these politically surcharged times which are witnessing a debate around nationalism.
Just as the President concluded the lecture, chants of the BJP-promoted Bharat Mata ki Jai slogans were heard in the auditorium of Nehru Memorial and Museum Library, which was principally comprised of Congress leaders.
The slogans left everyone surprised as the guests included Congress stalwarts like Sonias political adviser Ahmad Patel, AK Antony, Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath and ML Fotedar. The President invoked Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru to underline Indias tolerance as its strength.
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, April 10
The Pakistan authorities have agreed to open the two historic gurdwaras for devotees soon at Lahore.
This was disclosed by SAD (Delhi) chief Paramjit Singh Sarna upon his return from Pakistan tosday. He said the Pakistan government had also shown positive signs to hand over three other historic places to the public.
Sarna and his brother Harvinder Singh, who is also general secretary of SAD (Delhi), went to Pakistan to pay homage to Pakistan Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committees president Sham Singh, who died recently.
The Pakistan government and the Waqf Boards senior officials held a meeting to throw open the two gurdwaras associated with the fifth and sixth Sikh gurus in Lahore. This was announced by Waqaf Boards chairman Farooq-ul-Sadiqque during the bhog programme held to pay tributes to Sham Singh. These gurdwaras are located in Bazar Manjam in Lahore. They are maintained by the Wakf Board, he said.
Sarna said he had submitted before the officials of the Pakistan government that historic Chandu Di Haveli and Bhai Mani Singhs martyrdom place too should be handed over to Sikh representatives in Pakistan. He claimed that the government had shown a positive response to these demands.
At present, a school is being run from the Chandu Di Haveli where fifth Sikh master Guru Arjan Dev was tortured and the place where Bhai Mani Singh was martyred is being utilised as a factory by a Pathan family, but the domes over the building are still visible. We demanded that these sites should be handed over to Sikhs against adequate compensation to those who vacate it, he said.
SMA Kazmi
Tribune News Service
Dehradun, April 10
Amid the present political crisis following the imposition of Presidents rule in the state on March 27, the eagerness shown by a section of BJP leaders led by former Chief Minister and Nainital MP Bhagat Singh Koshyari to form a BJP-led government has not only exposed the party but also surprised many senior party leaders.
BJP leaders believe that any attempt to form a BJP-led government in the given circumstances will boomerang on the party in the forthcoming Assembly elections in the state.
Koshyari was in the forefront of the rebellion by the nine Congress legislators in the state Assembly during the passage of the Budget on March 18. He led the BJP and Congress rebel legislators on the night of March 18 to Raj Bhavan and demanded the dismissal of the Harish Rawat-led government. He was the point man in sending the BJP and rebel Congress rebels to Gurgaon and later to Jaipur. He is also supposed to be the person advising the Central party leadership on the happenings in the state. But after the Speaker suspended the membership of the nine Congress legislators, the political situation changed drastically for the BJP. The decision of Governor KK Paul to order a floor test on March 28 was negated with the imposition of Presidents rule in the state on March 27.
However, the decision of the single Bench of the Nainital High Court directing a floor test to be held on March 31 on a petition filed by deposed Chief Minister Harish Rawat turned the political fight into a legal battle. A division Bench of the Nainital High Court comprising Chief Justice KM Joseph and Justice VK Bisht stayed the single judge order but the legal battle has been raging in the court room with the next date of hearing fixed for April 18.
Interestingly, a delegation of BJP legislators led by Bhagat Singh Koshyari met Governor KK Paul on April 6 regarding various demands of the party and issues related with the development of the state. However, there was strong rumour that attempts were being made to form a BJP-led government by revoking Presidents rule. Koshyari and state BJP president Ajay Bhatt made their intentions clear in their statements. The Congress was quick to respond and dispatched a letter to the Governor requesting him to invite the deposed Congress government to prove its majority, the Congress being the single largest group in the state Assembly in case Presidents rule is revoked.
In the court hearing on April 7, the Central Government also felt embarrassed when Congress counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi alleged that though the matter was sub judice, the BJP was trying to form a government with the help of Central Government.
A powerful section of the state BJP leaders believe that the image of the party has suffered due to such a feeble and embarrassing attempt by Koshyari. They say the formation of the BJP-led government with the help of Congress rebels will boomerang during the Assembly elections. They are of the opinion that instead of meddling in the muddled waters of Congress infighting, the BJP should stay away and concentrate on the next Assembly poll. They argue that the CD sting episode has exposed deposed Chief Minister Harish Rawat but a BJP-led government for a few months will help him gain sympathy from people.
Beirut, April 9
The Islamic State group has released most of the 300 cement workers it abducted near Damascus after questioning them to find out who were Muslims and killing four who were members of the minority Druze sect, a Syrian opposition monitoring group and a news agency linked to the extremists reported on Saturday.
The reports came two days after Islamic State abducted the cement workers and contractors from their workplace in Dumeir, just northeast of the capital, after a surprise attack on government forces.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said all those abducted have been released except for 30 people who were guards at the cement factory. It added that the fate of the 30 is unknown.
The IS-affiliated Aamaq news agency said most of the 300 were released after questioning to determine their religion and whether they support the government. It said four workers who belonged to the minority Druze sect were killed and 20 pro-government gunmen are still being held.
The Druze, a 10th century offshoot of Shiite Islam, made up about 5 per cent of Syria's pre-war population of 23 million people. Lebanon and Israel also have large Druze communities.
Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim extremist group, considers all Shiites to be heretics deserving death.
Aamaq also released a video from inside al-Badia Cement Company in Dumeir, about 28 miles (45 kilometres) northeast of Damascus, showing trucks and bulldozers in the sprawling facility. Some fighters could be seen inside.
Also on Saturday, a senior official with al-Qaida's branch in Syria appeared in a video during which he denied reports by state media that he was killed in the northwestern province of Idlib. The Observatory also reported that Sheikh Abdullah al-Mheisny was not harmed.
"I will remain a thorn in your throat and my happiest day will be when I get martyred," al-Mheisny said in the video.
The militant was wounded by a Russian airstrike in December in Latakia province.
A Saudi citizen, al-Mheisny had been fighting in northern Syria for months, serving both as a senior religious and military commander with the al-Qaida branch, known as the Nusra Front.
Several top Nusra Front commanders have been recently killed in Syria by US airstrikes. AP
Beijing, April 10
Sri Lanka sees huge potential in economic cooperation with China, Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe has said, voicing confidence that key ventures like the Colombo Port City project will help transform his country into a financial hub in the Indian Ocean region.
Both Sri Lanka and China are deepening reforms, in the process of which we see huge potential for cooperation, Wickremesinghe said as he concluded a four-day visit here.
Sri Lanka and China share similarities in the way of thinking in various fields such as economic restructuring, he said.
Sri Lanka is ready to seek more economic cooperation opportunities with China, he said.
Infrastructure is just a start. The cooperation between China and Sri Lanka is expected to be intensified and go far beyond that, Wickremesinghe said.
For example, the Colombo Port City will become a financial and business hub in not only Sri Lanka, but also in the whole region of the Indian Ocean, he said.
This is Wickremesinghes seventh visit to China while first time since winning a parliamentary election in August last year.
It has been 37 years since I first visited China in 1979 when the country just initiated reform and opening up. The great achievement China has made proves only reform can make a country stronger, Wickremesinghe said.
Currently, the weak global economic growth requires all the economies to rely more on each other, and there is no exception for Sri Lanka and China.
That is why strengthening cooperation is so important, he told state-run Xinhua news agency.
Sri Lanka has shown its willingness to develop greater synergies between its own strategies and Chinas 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road initiative.
Projects such as the Hambantota Port and the Puttalam Coal Power Plant Project have become icons for the two countries cooperation in infrastructure construction, Wickremesinghe said.
In a joint statement issued on Saturday, Sri Lanka announced the resumption of work of the Colombo Port City Project and expressed the willingness to facilitate and support the implementation of this project and to cooperate with Chinese companies to promote other major projects.
Wickremesinghe also spoke highly of the supply-side structural reform, one of the priorities in Chinas 13th Five-Year Plan, believing it will bring fresh impetus to Chinas economic development and that of Asia and the whole world.
As China has become the second largest source of visitors to Sri Lanka, Wickremesinghe expects tourism will not only facilitate people-to-people exchanges, but also attract more Chinese investors to make relevant infrastructure more developed in Sri Lanka, Wickremesinghe said.
Tourists from India constitutes highest number of tourists in Sri Lanka. PTI
At the Capitol: About 560 bills and resolutions remain active in the Legislature after Thursdays committee deadline. Those will be winnowed further in the coming weeks as they work toward an April 21 deadline for Senate bills to be heard in the House and vice versa.
Also, the time is drawing nigh for lawmakers to make some difficult decisions regarding the projected $1.3 billion hole in the states general fund. Less than two months remain in the session.
Sugar daddies beware: Among the legislation signed by Gov. Mary Fallin last week was House Bill 2615 by Rep. Todd Thomsen, R-Ada, a former Sapulpa High School and University of Oklahoma football player.
The bill imposes a fine of up to $5,000 and opens the way for civil prosecution against anyone who tampers with a college athlete in such a way that the athlete loses eligibility and his or her school is placed on probation.
HB 2615 is similar to a Georgia law adopted in 2015.
Clean power: Senate Bill 1379, which likely would have forced a confrontation with the federal government over the Environmental Protection Agencys Clean Power Plan, died last week when it failed to get a hearing in the House Utilities Committee.
The bill, backed by the Koch brothers Americans for Prosperity, would have forbidden state agencies to develop a state Clean Power implementation plan, unless authorized by the attorney general and governor or ordered by the courts.
All downhill: Monday is Oklahomas Tax Freedom Day, according to the Tax Foundation.
The foundation defines Tax Freedom Day as the day on which the residents of a state have earned enough to pay their total local, state and federal taxes. The national Tax Freedom Day is April 24, one day earlier than a year ago.
Oklahomas Tax Freedom Day is the eighth earliest in the country. Mississippis, on April 5, is the earliest. Connecticut, at May 21, is the latest.
Events and meetings: Incumbent Dewey Bartlett and challenger G.T. Bynum will participate in a mayoral candidate forum during the Republican Womens Club of Tulsa County meeting at 11:45 a.m. Tuesday at Ti Amos, 6024 S. Sheridan Road.
Candidates: Former Mayor Terry Young said he will not be a candidate for Tulsa City Council. Young said he was approached about running for the District 9 post being vacated by mayoral candidate G.T. Bynum.
Oklahoma City businessman Richard Engle is a candidate for Republican National Committeeman. The state party will elect its national committeeman and committeewoman at the Oklahoma GOP convention in mid-May.
Senate
Security and airport workers: The Senate has passed an amendment sponsored by Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., to the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act (H.R. 636). The amendment would require tighter security reviews and background checks of airport workers and increase penalties for workers who fail to report the loss of the security badges that allow them to bypass security checkpoints. Thune said that given ongoing incidents of airport workers using badges to help transport drugs, and the possibile use of badges in terrorist plots, better security rules were needed to give the TSA and other agencies all the tools they need in order to do their jobs effectively. An amendment opponent, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., said the expanded background checks would create unnecessary barriers to employment for people with criminal records. The vote, on April 7, was 85 yeas to 10 nays.
The best part of leaving Iwo Jima?
For Lloyd Dinsmore, it had to be the shower.
As Dinsmore and his fellow Marines climbed aboard the ship that would take them to Hawaii, they were offered a choice, he said: What did we want first a hot breakfast or a hot shower.
It was an easy choice, he said. Over the previous four weeks on the island, there had been no bathing or showers.
He made it count, he added, letting the hot water run over his face and body for about 45 minutes.
It would take multiple showers, he said, to fully wash the black sludge from the islands volcanic ash out of his hair.
Dinsmore would be disappointed, though, if he thought he could ever wash Iwo Jima out of his head.
More than 70 years later, at age 93, he still lives with the horrifying images.
Amphibious tanks
Dinsmore, whose birthday was on Friday, welcomed the Tulsa World to his home recently to talk about his experiences serving with a Marine Corps tank crew in the Pacific war.
The youngest of eight children, he grew up in Missouri, where he graduated from Galt High School in 1940. From there, he went to work on a cattle ranch.
But in 1943, at age 20, the draft would call him away.
Kissing his sweetheart, Lois Colter, goodbye at Union Station in Kansas City, Dinsmore caught a train west to begin his service with the Marines.
With his two brothers quite a bit older, he was the only one of the Dinsmore siblings to serve in World War II.
In San Diego, Dinsmore was assigned to the 2nd Armored Amphibian Battalion. It was a recently formed unit, and boasted a new kind of tank that had not yet been used in combat an amphibious tank, or amtank as it was often called.
Designed to travel on land and water, the tanks could be transported to within several thousand yards of an island and released, making them useful in leading invasions.
Dinsmore was one of two ammunition handlers on his seven-member crew. It was his job to assemble the tanks 75 mm shells, which came in two pieces, and then pass them to the loader to be fired at the target.
By the time Dinsmore arrived on Saipan in September 1944, the tanks had already seen their first action on the island in June, clearing the way for Marine infantry landing behind them.
The battle was pretty well over, he said, but there were still a lot of Japanese soldiers. They had taken to the high hills on the island and would make night raids.
Saipan represented several firsts for Dinsmore, not only his initial fighting experience but his first loss of a comrade, as well.
The latter happened about 2 oclock one morning, he said. Caught unawares by a Japanese air raid, the base sounded its warning sirens a little late.
Before Dinsmore and his crewmates could make it to their foxholes, one of the Japanese planes found them.
We got caught in this open space where jungle had been cleared to make a softball field.
The plane had been hit and was going to crash but it was still able to fire its guns.
We hit the deck, Dinsmore said.
That undoubtedly saved most of them, he added. But one Marine, John Bistline, was not so lucky.
It happened so fast. ... He had been standing right next to me, Dinsmore said of his crewmate.
Hit by gunfire, Bistline died at the scene, Dinsmore said, cradled in the arms of another crew member.
26 days and 27 nights
The invasion of Iwo Jima began in February 1945.
After Saipan, it was the next stop for Dinsmore and the 2nd Battalion.
The job of the amtanks would be to accompany the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions, and lead the way onto the island.
An 8-square-mile hunk of sand and rock whose most distinguishing characteristic was its black beaches the sand is volcanic ash Iwo Jima would demand everything of Dinsmore and his crew for the next 26 days and 27 nights.
We fought our way from one end of the island to the other, he said.
It didnt start smoothly.
As they moved in for their initial landing, the advancing amtanks hit a wall of volcanic ash at the waters edge that they could not get past.
For Dinsmores tank, the situation was even worse. The clutch overheated and went out.
The tank wouldnt move, he said, adding that just sitting there made them a prime target for enemy guns and they had an array of them.
Forced to abandon the tank with enemy fire exploding all around, the crew dug in on the beach.
After 45 minutes, time for the clutch to cool, they got back in the tank and retreated back out to sea with the others.
Thats where Dinsmore spent the night afloat with his crew in their tank.
They had quite a view, he said, as the Navy ships and the Japanese on the island continuously fired on each other. It went on all night. It was like a thousand Fourth of Julys, he said.
The next day, a Navy construction battalion cleared away the ash wall, and Dinsmores and the other tanks were able to make a successful landing.
Tank warfare
From their station in the belly of the 26-foot-long tank, it was a pretty scary-type operation, Dinsmore said of being an ammunition handler. You never knew when this thing was going to take a round from an enemy.
A direct hit and everyone inside could be burned alive.
At the same time, being inside a tank gave us some protection that regular foot Marines didnt have.
Fortunately, we never took a direct hit. It was just a blessing that we didnt.
Another blessing, Dinsmore said, was the sight of the American flag when Marines raised it on top of Mt. Suribachi.
The subject of the famous photo by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal who was there to snap it as it happened it was an inspiring moment, Dinsmore said.
Unbeknownst to many, there were actually two flags. The photo was of the second flag raised much larger than the one it replaced. Dinsmore saw both events.
Fighting at the base of the mountain, his tank was approximately 500 feet below where these guys were who raised the flag.
It triggered an ecstatic chorus, he said. Between the ships in the harbor and Marines on shore everyone was shouting it sounded like OU had just scored a touchdown, Dinsmore said. All of us were like Gee, this fights already over. But it wasnt.
In later years, seeing Rosenthals Pulitzer Prize-winning photo would give Dinsmore a feeling of extreme pride.
At the time, we didnt understand the impact that it (the image) had on the nation as a whole.
After the taking of Suribachi, there was still plenty of fighting left to do. And that meant more dying.
We saw men killed in many different ways, Dinsmore noted grimly.
One incident he didnt witness but which, strangely, still plays over and over in his mind as if he did involved another young Marine.
He had been attacked (hand to hand) by two Japanese soldiers. He cried out Mom, mom, theyre killing me!
Dinsmore pauses as he recounts this. Eyes reddening, he has to change the subject.
Troops in combat could not receive regular mail from home, and so it often piled up.
Once, Dinsmore received 110 letters at one time.
Thats what happens, he said, when you have a girlfriend, parents and seven older siblings writing to you.
I sorted them by author, he said. Took me several weeks to read them all.
He read Lois first, of course, he said with a smile.
Almost four weeks after Dinsmores unit arrived on Iwo Jima, the island was mostly secured and the units work was done.
From there, he and the others sailed back to Maui to rest up for the next mission.
That was supposed to be the invasion of mainland Japan, as Dinsmore later learned. But the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 convinced Japan to surrender.
Suddenly, invasion was no longer necessary.
When the news of the first bomb broke, Dinsmore was still on Maui mere hours, he said, from shipping out for Japan.
We were elated, he said. The fact that this whole mess was probably going to be drawing to a close.
As bad as those A-bombs were, they actually saved a lot of lives. There wouldve been untold lives lost Japanese civilians, American military in an invasion.
Back at home
After the war, Dinsmore went on to a career with the federal government, most of it with the Department of Labor. The family lived in Kansas City and then Houston, before moving to Tulsa in 1982.
Dinsmore and his wife, Lois who will celebrate their 70th anniversary this June raised a son and daughter. Of their five grandchildren, two have gone on to distinguished careers in the Navy.
Active with veterans groups in Tulsa, including the Marine Corps League and All Veterans of Tulsa, Dinsmore has spoken publicly many times about his experiences, including for programs about Iwo Jima at the Circle Cinema.
Over the years, Dinsmore kept in touch with his fellow crew members. Until age made travel difficult, the group got together for regular reunions.
As for reuniting with Iwo Jima, Dinsmore probably wont ever get closer than the small vial of sand he has from the island.
A gift from someone a few years ago, the tiny black pellets remind him of the island and all who those who fought there, answering their countrys call.
I am honored to have been a small part of a job that needed to be done, Dinsmore said.
In a presidential election characterized by inconsistency, there remains one indelible constant: anger. Exit polls from Ohio, a state considered by many to be representative of the nation as a whole, found that an astonishing 90 percent of Republican voters described themselves as dissatisfied or angry with the federal government; for Democrats the number was a smaller but still significant 70 percent.
On one hand, the people have a right to be angry. Sluggish economic recovery marked by abysmal wage growth, an ever-threatening world of extremism and strongmen, and unprecedented political polarization are a popular and not unfounded explanation for Americans pessimism. Still, this years remarkable anxiety levels demand further examination.
I contend that the anger characterizing this election cycle comes from a fundamental belief that the system is working against us. There is an increasing chance that the Democratic nominee will be decided by super delegates, a gaggle of party elites whose votes, unbound to any vote of the people, comprise 30 percent of the delegates at the Democratic National Convention. Put into perspective, the unelected vice-chairman of Wyomings Democratic Party has just as much clout at the convention as a bound delegate from Oklahoma representing 8,247 voters.
A recent Washington Post editorial sums up the absurdity of the super delegate system with its headline: The (Un)Democratic Party.
Not to be outdone, it is more than likely that for the first time in almost half a century, the Republicans will have a brokered convention. At a basic level, this means that a couple thousand people serving as delegates at the convention, in the event no candidate gets a majority on the first ballot, can usurp the will of millions of primary voters.
Theoretically, one doesnt even have to be a presidential candidate to win, meaning someone could become the Republican nominee without a single popular vote cast in their name. Even more confounding is that nobody knows exactly what could happen at a brokered convention, since convention rules are decided each year by party officials.
On the other hand, our leaders ought to be held to a higher standard, and while anger originates in the people, it is peddled by our politicians. The Grand Old Party has put on a national show of animosity, perpetually focused on who and what people dont like. FiveThirtyEight, a data-based journalism site specializing in politics, did a recent analysis of the most repeated phrases by leading Republican presidential candidates; among the winners were we dont win, the fight and one of the worst.
Less documented, but still noteworthy, is the Democratic side, where any mention of Hillary Clintons name at a Bernie Sanders rally is met with appreciable boos, and Clintons donors are amassing a war chest specifically designed to attack Donald Trump who shes not yet running against.
This is perhaps the area where we the people are the biggest losers. Our politicians should appeal to our best impulses, not our worst ones. Admittedly, calls for optimism and resilience have so far fallen on deaf ears, but that doesnt justify pandering to negativity. When even our leaders spread gloom, there is little reason for us to be optimistic. Unfortunately, if politicians continue to pander to anger, it will only be reinforced in a self-defeating cycle.
In November, I will cast my ballot for president for the first time. I want to be proud of my vote, and inspired by whoever I vote for. If anger remains the constant in an otherwise volatile election, I fear that this wont be the case for me, and for too many other Americans.
Micah Cash is a senior at Booker T. Washington High School.
As we confront threats of terrorism all over the word, national security and Middle East stability are more important than ever for Americans. In addition to border security, strong defense and capable intelligence services, any homeland security strategy must address nuclear threats and accountability measures for Iran and its nuclear program.
Many of my colleagues in the Senate and I were exceedingly skeptical last July when the Obama administration signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, more commonly known as the Iran Nuclear Deal. The deals proponents argued that it would curb Irans bad behavior and prevent, or at least postpone, Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Quite optimistically, they argued that bringing Iran back into the international fold would set the country on a path away from supporting terrorism, toward a cooling of tensions with Israel, and away from further development of conventional weapons, such as ballistic missiles.
In reality, much of the deals language is ambiguous and open to misinterpretation, and the administrations commitment to the so-called snap-back sanctions remain in serious question.
I repeatedly spoke out against the deal last summer, and I voted against it when it was presented to the Senate last September in the form of a resolution of disapproval. Unfortunately, that vote failed to meet the needed 60-vote threshold by two votes.
Looking back at the events of the past seven months, our skepticism clearly was justified. Iran remains the worlds largest state sponsor of terrorism. In March, Iran conducted multiple test flights of ballistic missiles. Several of them were capable of reaching Israel and were emblazoned with a slogan in Hebrew: Israel must be wiped off the Earth, according to an Iranian-government controlled news outlet. On Tuesday, Russia announced it would ship S-300 air-defense missile systems to Iran an advanced capability that will provide extensive protection for nuclear and military facilities.
In February, I questioned Director of National Intelligence James Clapper during an Intelligence Committee hearing. I asked the Clapper about Irans behavior since the signing of the nuclear deal. He confirmed that Iran was still the worlds largest state-sponsor of terrorism and that it continues to behave provocatively. I asked him if he had seen any change in Irans testing of ballistic missiles, and the directors answer was a firm no. In fact, he confirmed that there had been about 140 missiles launched by Iran in violation of U.N. agreements, half of which were launched during the Obama administrations negotiations with Iran.
My concern is not just Iran in possession of a nuclear bomb; the leadership of Iran continues to threaten the stability of its neighbors, such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, and Lebanon. Meanwhile, it is propping up the deplorable regime of Bashar al-Asad in Syria. If Tehran builds nuclear weapons, their reign of terror would only increase. A nuclear-armed Iran is an unacceptable scenario.
Renewed focus and leadership on this issue is vital. On Wednesday, I continued to fight the Obama administrations appeasement strategy with Iran by introducing a Senate resolution to hold Iran accountable and ensure President Obama follows through on his commitment to reimpose sanctions if Iran violates the nuclear deal. This resolution is an important step to clarify our expectations and set in stone the Senates view of U.S. actions if specific terms of the deal are breached.
My resolution says that, if Iran violates the nuclear deal, the United States must immediately reapply our nuclear-related sanctions, push for the U.N. Security Council to reinstate Iran sanctions resolutions, work with our European partners to limit their financial ties to Iran, and seek a U.N. Security Council resolution that limits exports of defensive weapons to Iran. Additionally, my resolution makes clear the Senates expectation that Iran make public its uranium enrichment plans, research and development plans, and procurement requests.
It is imperative that we show fortitude in efforts to curb Irans irresponsible behavior, even if those in the administration would prefer to declare victory and pivot to other issues. If Iran violates the nuclear agreement, our response should be swift and severe. Until Iran proves it can act like a peaceful nation, we must remain vigilant and steadfast against its global terror agenda.
It's Divali time so at TV6 over the next few days, we bring you some of the interesting aspe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWvM4aPir00
Nine is expecting to know later tonight if its 60 Minutes crew will be charged in Lebanon, following the detention of 7 people after botched child recovery operation.
Media reports claim the case was referred on Saturday to prosecutors who would most likely charge seven people today.
Theres been some reports out of Lebanon that theyre being charged. Thats not the case, Victoria Buchan, Head of Communications at Nine told Fairfax.
Nothing will happen, as far as weve been advised by the consulate and our legal people, until Monday their time, which is Monday night our time.
Theres no change to the situation. Theyre still being held, and were still working with the consulate and legal representation to get them out and home as soon as possible.
The ABC has reported that Lebanese authorities have a signed statement from one of the recovery team saying Channel Nine paid $115,000 for the operation (some reports indicate $120,000). Nine has denied it made a direct payment to the agency.
The Australian reports the Nine crew arrived 10 minutes late to the incident because of heavy traffic, but that cameras drew the attention of two off-duty policeman.
It also reports Nine News boss Darren Wick left for Lebanon yesterday morning. So far the team are all said to be in good health and good spirits.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said, We are providing as much support as we can, meeting with officials within the Lebanese government and doing what we can to ascertain what is proposed, in relation to the crew and the alleged involvement of the crew in this case.
Malcolm Turnbull has said, Our consular officials are in touch with the journalists and the crew that are in prison and we are seeking through the usual diplomatic channels to ensure that they are kept safe and will be able to return.
Last night on 60 Minutes, Michael Usher told viewers, Everyone in the Nine News and 60 Minutes family is doing their utmost to support.
Its a stressful time for them and their families, and the last thing our team wanted was to become the subject of their own story.
For those working hard for their safe return, we earnestly thank you and well keep you posted as events unfold.
Media Watch will also look into the case tonight on ABC.
Update: Tom Steinfort told the Today that Nine had hired a well-respected Lebanese criminal lawyer and that crew had now been sent to separate male and female detention centres.
We are likely to find out whether or not they will be facing charges and perhaps what those charges may well be, he said.
It is a tricky legal process here and its one that is likely to take some time.
The 60 Minutes crew say they are thankful for the way that they are being treated by Lebanese authorities at the moment.
Their families are being kept updated on the situation every step of the way.
Unfortunately, they havent been able to talk directly with their loved ones at this stage after five days in custody.
However, our director of News of Current Affairs will bring photos and messages from loved ones to keep them in touch with their family at home as everyone awaits.
Hopefully they are released not too far down the track.
SBS is screening five shorts made by young filmmakers as part of National Youth Week.
Screening as interstitials across SBS 2, NITV, Food Network and SBS On Demand the films were part of a competition inviting 14-20 year olds to produce a one-minute film themed around identity.
The films explore identity issues facing young Australians ranging from refugee stories, Middle-Eastern and Muslim stereotypes, autism and gender dysphoria.
Helen Kellie, SBS Chief Content Officer, said: We had an overwhelming response to the SBS National Youth Week initiative with so many inspiring stories from across the nation. This is the first time SBS has run such an initiative and I am honoured that we can give young Australians a platform to share their stories of identity.
The five winners are:
Stephanie Kurlow, 14, from Sydney dreams of being the worlds first professional hijab wearing ballerina. She overcomes the negative comments of twitter trolls through her passion and dedication to dance;
Caitlin Gerkin, 18, a young artist on the Autism Spectrum uses an analogy of the Chinese Room thought experiment to explain how she sees the world differently from others;
Atak Ngor, 18, was born in what is now South Sudan during the Second Sudanese Civil War. He left South Sudan when he was six for Kakuma Refugee camp and some years later, Australia. His film is dedicated to those he left behind;
Taz Clay, 17, a young Indigenous brotherboy shares his difficult journey to affirming his gender and the importance of speaking out about gender identity;
Anthony Farah, 20, AKA YouTube Vlogger Captain Fizzman, is having an identity crisis. He turns to the internet to find out what young Lebanese men like him should be doing with their lives. This humorous film examines cultural stereotypes in modern-day Australia.
Udaku Special
About 100 Al-Shabaab militants on Sunday morning attacked Diff Police Station in Wajir County, injuring three officers.The heavily armed attackers are said to have stormed the police post at 3am, where they shot indiscriminately at 18 police officers who were at the station.A heavy gunfire exchange ensued for two hours as the officers engaged the somali-based militants who later escaped taking with them a police land cruiser and mortar."The terrorists took the camp Landcruiser that we believe was used to ferry the many casualties they suffered, As they fled, the terrorists set ablaze shops at Diff market one belonging to the local chief," police noted in a statement.Police affirmed that security personnel drawn from the Kenya Defence Force (KDF) and National Police Service (NPS) were in hot pursuit of the gunmen to interdict them and recover the stolen vehicle.This is the latest attack from the militia group. In January, seven police officers were killed and a few others injured when a vehicle they were traveling in drove over an explosive device planted along the Hindi-Kiunga road in Lamu by Al-Shabaab militants.Five days after that incident, gunmen who were heavily armed raided a village at Kaisari in Pandanguo, Lamu County killing several people.
Udaku Special
Troubled national carrier Kenya Airways is planning to offload some of its pilots to Ethiopian Airlines as part of austerity measures to see the airline return to profitability.It is reported that 21 captains and 18 First Officers have received letters to the effect that they are being redeployed to the Ethiopian national carrier.However, the news has not gone down well with the targeted officers, who have been given upto Tuesday April 12, to acknowledge their redeployment.The Nation reports that Kenya Airline Pilots Association (Kalpa) subsequently set a meeting to deliberate on the next move for its members and is likely to move to court challenging the move.The targeted pilots are among personnel of a fleet of Boeing 777 planes that have remained grounded for close to half a year now.A letter sent to the pilots by Acting Head of Employee Relationship Murage Latiffa Cherono read in part: As you are aware, the company has in the past few years experienced great business challenges that have led to poor financial results. As such, there has been a decline in the expected pace of growth of the network and subsequent reduction in fleet size including the B777 fleet, which you operate. This development led to most of the B777 pilots being underutilized in flying duties over the last several months and has therefore necessitated the company, as part of Operation Pride turnaround programme, to look for alternative deployment opportunities for you.Those who apply for the lateral transfer will work for Ethiopian Airlines for three years. They will however, have an option to rejoin Kenya Airways if the ongoing turnaround strategy is successful.The carrier has been flying in turbulent skies struggling to remain afloat after registering huge losses in two consecutive years.KQ had earlier announced plans to retrench some 600 of its staff to reduce its employee headcount in a bid to improve profitability.Read also: Qatar Airways Poaches 20 Best KQ EngineersThe carrier is also reported to have sold off its morning landing slot at Londons Heathrow airport for an estimated Sh7.5 Billion to Oman Air. Oman Air have also accepted a deal with KQ to lease two of it's Boeing 787-8s . There are also plans to reduce the fleet from the current 52 planes to 36.Read also: Kenya Airways Decides to Sell PlanesGroup Managing Director Mbuvi Ngunze has reassured the public that the financial troubles the carrier is facing will be addressed soon.
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Fiji have won the Cathay Pacific/Hong Kong sevens after beating New Zealand for a second year running at the prestigious tournament.Ben Ryan's side walked away with the Cup following a bruising 20 minute encounter with the All Blacks Sevens in front of packed out stands in Hong Kong. Pita Ahki got Sir Gordon Tietjens side off to a flying start when he turned Jerry Tuwai inside out and ran in under the posts. However just minutes later Tuwai got his revenge as he sniped over the New Zealand line from three metres away. With the rain starting to fall, handling errors were plentiful from both sides and the first half ended 7-7.Kitione Taliga scored early on in the second half for Fiji after Semi Kunatani made a striding break through the stretched New Zealand defence. At 14-7, Fiji then turned up the pressure even more as Pio Tuwai turned over possession on Fiji's 22 and let Amenoni Nasilasila loose, who eventually offloaded to send Semi Kunatani under the posts and secure the victory.Elsewhere in the competition South Africa edged Australia to finish third, England beat USA to take the plate, Argentina beat Scotland to the bowl and Russia overcame Canada to lift the plate.
Colleen Cason
I learned it decades ago, but to this day I can give you the scientific name of that bug buzzing around the rim of your Margarita glass.
Drosophila melanogaster. Most know it as the common fruit fly, an annoying pest of al fresco diners everywhere.
How could I forget those nine syllables? I serially killed those little buggers by the dozens in the process of preparing a high school science fair project. Instead of proving whatever genetics hypothesis I was testing, I invented a way to exterminate them without benefit of pesticide something the hospitality industry would have welcomed if only I had been creative enough to market it.
As we enter this year's scholastic science fair season, my thoughts turn to the young researchers who dream way bigger than than my exercise in Drosophila die-off. These kids possess that special spark of scientific curiosity to soar with the eagles, instead of swarming with the fruit flies. They test the limits of their textbooks and their teachers' lesson plans. Something hardwired into them draws them back to the drawing board to tinker with their techniques and rethink their theories.
True discovery always comes at a price; it could be time, money, energy and in the worst case a life of stellar promise ends too soon.
Last week, 18-year old Bernard Moon died after a rocket-powered skateboard he was testing exploded on a Thousand Oaks schoolyard. Moon's Thousand Oaks High classmate survived the blast, which has been ruled an accident. Ventura County Sheriff's detectives are trying to identify the chemicals used to power the rocket's motor.
Moon took first place in physics at the Ventura County Science Fair last year for a project called "Optimization of an oxidizer and fuel reaction through combustion."
Accepted at elite universities, the honor student placed second in the chemistry category of last year's competition and advanced to the state science fair.
As home to Naval Base Ventura County and part of Southern California's aerospace industry, Ventura County long has been a laboratory for groundbreaking scientists.
When The Star polled readers on their whereabouts when the Challenger exploded 30 years ago in January, many worked on the space shuttle and even for the company that designed the parts that caused the craft to disintegrate moments after liftoff.
When I read of Moon's tragic loss to his family and friends, I was reminded of another Thousand Oaks rocket scientist who died in pursuit of knowledge.
Larry Pugh, then 51, and a fellow researcher Otto Heiney perished on July 26, 1994, when rocket fuel chemicals exploded at Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the hills near Simi Valley. A third colleague, Lee Wells, would survive his second and third degree burns.
The blast was so powerful residents near the rocket test site thought it was an earthquake.
Pugh, of Thousand Oaks, possessed what a Los Angeles Times profile called a "passion for high-end, hands-on science." Coming from a small Ohio town, he went on to study physics and earned a doctorate. He participated in a secret laser project.
Engines tested at the field lab powered astronauts to the moon and the space shuttle into orbit.
No one can know what heights Bernard Moon might have reached, but his family has set up a scholarship in his memory so other young scientists can follow their passion for discovery.
Messages left by mourners on the memorials that have sprung up praise Moon for his curiosity and intelligence. He brightened their lives.
One of the brightest stars our nation has ever known is Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher in fact, the first civilian selected by NASA to journey to outer space.
An Oxnard elementary school is named for the social studies teacher who topped 11,000 applicants for a place on what would be the ill-fated Challenger.
When interviewed pre-flight about the dangers of space travel and her reason for taking such a risk, McAuliffe replied: "When you are offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask which seat. Just get on."
Let us praise all the future engineers, mathematicians and researchers who enter upcoming science fairs and dream of unlimited horizons. Let us commit ourselves to protect and nurture them and their curiosity.
And let us raise a glass drosophila melanogaster and all to the explorers, scientists and pioneers possessed of the passion to give their all to unlock the secrets of the universe.
Email Colleen Cason at casonpoint101@gmail.com
Star file photo
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By Michele Willer-Allred, Special to The Star
The Moorpark Unified School District has about $750,000 in its emergency fund, leaving it out of compliance with state law that requires districts to keep at least 3 percent of their overall budget in reserves.
The district is projected to end the school year with a reserve of about 1.2 percent of its overall budget, according to the district's second interim financial report, which was recently submitted to the Ventura County Office of Education. By law, it should have about $1.8 million.
In the report, the school district received a "qualified" certification, which means the district may or may not be able to meet its financial obligations for the fiscal year that ends June 30.
Despite the reserves shortage, district Superintendent Kelli Hays said fund balances are solvent and all programs and services for students will proceed as planned as the district takes steps to patch the shortfall.
"I am very confident that we will right the course of our great district, but it will not happen immediately," Hays said.
"Although it is disappointing to receive a qualified certification, it is a notification process that alerted the district of the necessity to make improvements to the budgeting processes and procedures."
Hays said the low reserves are a result of two unanticipated budget events: increasing costs to special education services and ongoing declining enrollment projected through 2025.
The district had 140 fewer students this year. It originally budgeted for a decline of 70 students, which is about $500,000 less in revenue.
Hays said that despite declining enrollment, more students are becoming eligible for mandated special education services.
Special education expenditures required $1.2 million from the district's reserves.
Hays said structural budget improvements need to be made during the 2016-17 school year, including implementing staffing adjustments through retirements and resignations, and reconfiguring the organizational structure at the district office.
A one-time revenue payment proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown to public school districts beginning July 1 is expected to contribute about $1.3 million to the district, which will bump reserves to the required 3 percent.
Hays said the district must prepare strategies to adjust expenditures. The district is also joining study groups with neighboring districts to discuss and share ways to maintain special education costs.
"I am confident that these adjustments will restore our reserve fund to the required 3 percent balance as well as strengthen the overall health and sustainability of MUSD's budget," Hays said.
School districts must file interim budget reports with the county on Oct. 31 and Jan. 31. They have three options in filing the reports: positive, which means they will meet their financial obligations this year and next; qualified, which means they might meet their obligations; and negative, meaning they won't meet their obligations.
Moorpark is the only district in Ventura County to file a qualified report this time, but other districts, including Simi Valley, Santa Paula and Ojai, have filed them in the past.
California Education Code requires that the county superintendent review district interim reports. The superintendent then determines whether the budget projections will allow the district to meet its financial obligations.
STAR FILE PHOTO The 2014 Camarillo Fiesta & Street Fair.
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By Mike Harris of the Ventura County Star
Seven past and present board members of the Camarillo Fiesta Association say they stand by the nonprofit's decision not to seek criminal charges against a former president who allegedly embezzled about $24,000 from it in 2014.
They spoke this month, a few weeks after the alleged theft by Robert Capellini surfaced publicly, sparking an investigation by the Ventura County District Attorney's Office.
They said they didn't seek charges because they felt that if Capellini were convicted and jailed, he wouldn't be able to repay the money.
"Our main concern was to recoup the money and then give it back to the community," said board member Anna Langer.
The association puts on the annual Camarillo Fiesta & Street Fair every summer. One of the city's premiere events, it draws tens of thousands of people and raises thousands of dollars for local nonprofit youth groups. Now in its 52nd year, this year's fiesta is scheduled for July 7-10 with about 200 vendors expected.
Another board member, Stewart Sher, agreed with Langer, saying, "We felt that if we prosecuted, we wouldn't get the money back."
Capellini has since paid most of it back and has signed a promissory note to reimburse the rest.
Five other past or present board members, Suzanne Kitchens, Armando Lozano, Beverly Lusk, Tom Malone and Marriette Simoni, also said they agreed with not seeking charges against Capellini.
Decision criticized
But critics say that by not bringing the case to the District Attorney's Office, the association gives the appearance that it tried to cover up the embezzlement. The theft didn't come to light publicly for about a year after the board discovered it.
"I don't think they handled it right," said Roy Villa, a former fiesta board member who ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 2014. "They should have reported it to the DA because the association receives some taxpayer money. Just come clean and say, 'This is bad and we want to report it.'
"At least that way they would have gotten it out in the open," said Villa, who lost in 2014 to three council incumbents, including current Mayor Mike Morgan, who sits on the association's board and who is running for the Ventura County Board of Supervisors.
Even without a formal complaint from the association, prosecutors last month opened an investigation into the alleged theft after it was reported by news media. They noted public funds may be involved.
The association receives some funding from the city of Camarillo. Bruce Feng, who retired Monday after five years as Camarillo's city manager, said none of the allegedly embezzled funds was city money. Critics question that contention.
Michael Schwartz, special assistant district attorney, said Friday the investigation is ongoing.
"I do not have a date in which we anticipate it will be completed," he said.
DENIES CONCEALING THEFT
Morgan said there was no cover-up.
"Not at all," he said.
After the alleged theft was discovered by the board in early 2015, Morgan said, he brought it to the attention of Feng and Ventura County Sheriff's Cmdr. Monica McGrath, who is Camarillo's police chief.
McGrath in turn asked Morgan to provide her with documentation of the alleged embezzlement so a financial crimes detective could determine if a crime had been committed, she said this month. Morgan told her a short time later that the association board had decided not to pursue charges, choosing instead to make repayment arrangements with Capellini, she said.
"And so he (Morgan) never came forward with the documents for me to review," McGrath said. "I had recommended that we look at it as a crime. But the board was real hesitant to go that route. Basically, they wanted to handle it among themselves."
Some board members said the critics are trying to embarrass Morgan politically in his run for the Board of Supervisors.
"It's all politics," said Lozano, noting that he and Morgan are personal friends. "Someone is trying to make him look bad. Mike Morgan is the most ethical, upstanding person I've ever met. He's the face of Camarillo."
Other past and present board members either declined to comment, could not be reached for comment or spoke off the record.
Villa and another Camarillo resident who believes there may have been a cover-up, Jeff McVicker, a former federal fraud investigator, deny they're trying to embarrass Morgan in his supervisors run.
"If it had been any other of the council members, I would have pursued this exactly the same," McVicker said. "My interest is that everything should be transparent. I'm just a concerned citizen."
Morgan is one of seven candidates running to succeed longtime Supervisor Kathy Long, who announced in May that she would not be seeking re-election.
ANONYMOUS LETTER
The alleged embezzlement did not become public knowledge until this year when an anonymous letter was sent to Rep. Julia Brownley, D-Westlake Village, asking her to investigate. The Jan. 30 letter, written by someone who claims to be a longtime Camarillo City Hall employee, was received by others too, including The Star. The letter led to news reports about the alleged theft, which in turn triggered the district attorney's investigation.
"This embezzlement wasn't publicly admitted to for over a year until the anonymous letter," McVicker said.
Brownley said in a statement this month that she was unable to respond to the author of the letter because he or she chose to remain anonymous. "That being said, I think it's reasonable for the DA to take a closer look at the matter to determine if any additional steps should be taken," she said.
McVicker said he has taken a close look at the association's 2014 federal tax return, which was filed in October 2015 after Capellini agreed to pay back the money. McVicker said he found some irregularities.
"They didn't disclose it (the alleged embezzlement) properly," said McVicker, who obtained the return from the website GuideStar, which compiles information on nonprofits. "To me, this is just a continuation of the cover-up or incompetence on someone's part."
Morgan, who signed the return filed by Camarillo accounting firm Mitchell & Associates, said he stands by it.
"My accountant said this is the way to handle it," Morgan said.
Doug Green, who teaches nonprofit management at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, said that the association's board could have helped quash speculation about a possible cover-up by sending an email to stakeholders as soon as the theft was discovered.
"It could have said, 'Look, this has happened. We're taking it quite seriously. We're looking into it. Right now, we can't say much more,'" Green said. "Just so, as a practical matter, it doesn't look like there was any attempt to not be transparent."
Feng said that because the city has not yet given the fiesta association any funds for the 2014 fair, none of the money Capellini allegedly stole that year was taxpayer money.
"The answer is no," Feng said.
The city only funds the fair in years it has a negative net income, he said. The city is still waiting for financial statements from the 2014 and 2015 fiestas, he said.
For 2011-13, the city's annual average funding to the fiesta was $9,185, he said.
McVicker, however, said he doesn't see how Feng could know if any of the money Capellini allegedly stole was city money from years before 2014.
"So I don't think he can make that statement," McVicker said.
Capellini, meanwhile, declined to comment for this story.
"I'd just as soon put this thing behind me," he said.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
From left: Gary Favela, of Rancho Cucamonga; Don Teichner, of Mesquite, Nev.; Muku Reynolds, of Chino; Steve Arthur, of Camarillo; Linda Arthur, of Camarillo; Robin Brum, of Camarillo; and Mark MacKenzie, of Valencia.
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By Megan Diskin of the Ventura County Star
A bench will be installed Sunday at Topanga State Park in honor of three Camarillo residents and four others who died while hiking together last year in Utah.
Craig Sap, district superintendent for California State Parks, said the hikers' loved ones called park officials about the bench a few weeks after the incident.
Three Camarillo residents died in the accident: Steve Arthur, 58, a Ventura County sheriff's sergeant; his wife, Linda, 57; and Robin Brum, 53. They were killed Sept. 14, 2015, when they were overtaken by a flash flood while hiking narrow Keyhole Canyon in Zion National Park. The other hikers were identified as Mark MacKenzie, 56, of Valencia; Gary Favela, 51, of Rancho Cucamonga; Don Teichner, 55, of Mesquite, Nevada; and Muku Reynolds, 59, of Chino.
Sap said the California State Parks Foundation, a nonprofit organization, receives many requests for memorial benches, and this particular one was approved because "there was a law enforcement component to it."
Steve Arthur was a 21-year veteran of the Ventura County Sheriff's Office.
Sap said his agency often works closely with the Sheriff's Office because of standing mutual aid agreements.
Once the request was approved, loved ones took to GoFundMe to raise the $2,750 the foundation needed to build and install the bench. It will bear the inscription "Don't Walk in Front of Me, Don't Walk Behind Me Walk Beside Me and Just Be My Friend. Keyhole 7," according to the GoFundMe page.
Park agency employees will install the bench at 10 a.m. Sunday at Eagle Rock, a place of inspiration for many in the group.
SHARE CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Oxnard Fire Department.
By Megan Diskin of the Ventura County Star
A green liquid that fire crews were investigating Saturday at an Oxnard car wash turned out to be cleaning product, officials said.
The possible hazardous material was reported about 3:40 p.m. in the 100 block of South Oxnard Boulevard, the Oxnard Fire Department said.
The liquid was leaking from a trash enclosure, passing through the parking lot and into an alley, officials said. Crews contained about 5 to 10 gallons of the spilled substance before it could reach a storm drain, authorities said.
After discovering what it was fire crews used absorbent material to soak up the substance, officials said. Although the liquid is not hazardous, city crews were called to the scene to use a vacuum to clean up the rest of the product so it does not end up in the storm drain, authorities said.
The business owner had also been called to assist firefighters, officials said.
FILE PHOTO Automated external defibrillator training will be part of a class offered by the American Heart Association in Camarillo.
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Camarillo
Public can help plant new trees
Pleasant Valley Recreation and Park District will present Arbor Day: Community Tree Planting at the Park at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Camarillo Grove Park Nature Center, 6968 E. Camarillo Springs Road.
Guests can hear a short talk on the benefit of trees, help plant trees and make a tree-themed craft.
Attendance is free. For more information, visit www.pvrpd.org or call 482-1996.
Public can sign up for CPR class
The American Heart Association's CPR, First Aid and AED class will be offered from 5:30-9:30 p.m. April 25 at 3639 E. Las Posas Road, Suite E117.
This class will cover automated external defibrillator instruction, bleeding control, caring for shock, treating burns, applying splints and sudden illness. A certificate of completion will be provided.
The class fee is $65 plus a $15 material fee for Camarillo and Somis residents and $78 plus $15 material fee for all other residents.
Call 388-1952, ext. 100 to register.
Ojai
Film society will screen 'Room'
The Ojai Film Society will host a screening of "Room" at 5 p.m. Sunday at Matilija Auditorium, 703 El Paseo Road.
General admission is $10 and $7 for seniors and students. For more information, visit www.ojaifilmsociety.org or call 646-8946.
Ventura
Group provides help with Parkinson's
The Ventura Parkinson's Support Group will meet from 1-3 p.m. Wednesday at The Lexington Assisted Living, 5440 Ralston St.
Aurora Soriano, assistant state director of the Parkinson's Action Network, will give updates on the California Parkinson's Registry and how people can bring awareness to the disease.
For more information, call Patty at 766-6070.
Class teaches about self-portraits
The Museum Ventura County's art instruction series, Studio Sunday, will continue with "Frida and a Margarita" from 1-4 p.m. Sunday at 100 E. Main St.
Participants will learn to master the self-portrait as Frida Kahlo did, incorporating symbolic elements and bright colors.
The class costs $40 or $35 for MVC members. To reserve a spot, visit www.venturamuseum.org/studiosunday and pay online or call 653-0323, ext. 315.
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One of history's most important battles happened in Princeton, New Jersey, on a field you can walk across in less than half the 45 or so minutes the battle lasted. If George Washington's audacity on Jan. 3, 1777, had not reversed the patriots' retreat and routed the advancing British, the American Revolution might have been extinguished.
Yet such is America's neglect of some places that sustain its defining memories, the portion of the field over which Washington's nation-saving charge passed is being bulldozed to make way for houses for faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study. To understand the gravity of this utterly unnecessary desecration, you must understand the astonishingly underestimated Battle of Princeton.
In December 1776, the Revolution was failing. Britain had sent to America 36,000 troops at that point, the largest European expeditionary force ever to crush the rebellion before a French intervention on America's behalf. Washington had been driven from Brooklyn Heights, then from Manhattan, then out of New York. The nation barely existed as he retreated across New Jersey, into Pennsylvania.
But from there, on Christmas night, he crossed the Delaware River ice floes for a successful 45-minute (at most) attack on Britain's Hessian mercenaries at Trenton. This was Washington's first victory; he had not been at Lexington, Concord or Bunker Hill. Trenton would, however, have been merely an evanescent triumph, were it not for what happened 10 days later.
On Jan. 2, 1777, British Gen. Charles Cornwallis began marching 5,500 troops from Princeton to attack Washington's slightly outnumbered forces at Trenton. Washington, leaving a few hundred soldiers to tend fires that tricked Cornwallis into thinking the patriot army was encamped, made a stealthy 14-mile night march to attack three British regiments remaining at Princeton. They collided on this field.
The most lethal weapons in this war were bayonets. The British had them. Few Americans did, and they beat a panicked retreated from the advancing steel. By his personal bravery, Washington reversed this and led a charge. An unusually tall man sitting on a large white horse, he was a clear target riding as close to British lines as first base is to home plate.
Biographer Ron Chernow writes that at Princeton, Washington was a "warrior in the antique sense. The 18th-century battlefield was a compact space, its cramped contours defined by the short range of muskets and bayonet charges, giving generals a chance to inspire by their immediate presence."
When the redcoats ran, the British aura of invincibility and the strategy of "securing territory and handing out pardons" (Chernow) were shattered. And the drift of American opinion toward defeatism halted.
In his four-volume biography of Washington, James Thomas Flexner said: "The British historian George Trevelyan was to write concerning Trenton: 'It may be doubted whether so small a number of men ever employed so short a space of time with greater and more lasting effects upon the history of the world.' But such would not have been the result if Washington had not gone on to overwhelm Princeton."
This ground, on which patriots' blood puddled on that 20-degree morning, has been scandalously neglected by New Jersey. Now it is being vandalized by the Institute for Advance Study, which has spurned a $4.5 million purchase offer more than $1 million above the appraised value from the invaluable Civil War Trust, which is expanding its preservation activities to Revolutionary War sites.
In today's academia there are many scholars against scholarship, including historians hostile to history postmodernists who think the past is merely a social construct reflecting the present's preoccupations, or power structures, or something. They partake of academia's preference for a multicultural future of diluted, if not extinguished, nationhood, and they dislike commemorating history made by white men with guns.
The IAS engaged a historian who wrote a report clotted with today's impenetrable academic patois. He says we should not "fetishize space," and he drapes disparaging quotation marks around the words "hallowed ground."
The nation owes much to the IAS, which supported Albert Einstein, physicist Robert Oppenheimer and the diplomat and historian George F. Kennan. It is especially disheartening that a distinguished institution of scholars is indifferent to preserving a historic site that can nourish national identity.
The battle to save this battlefield, one of the nation's most significant and most neglected sites, is not yet lost. The government in today's Trenton, and in the city named for the man who won the 1777 battle, should assist the Civil War Trust.
George Will is a Washington Post columnist. Contact him at georgewill@washpost.com.
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It is a sad day in our county. Jane Laut isnt the first battered woman to be sent to jail, and I am afraid she will not be the last. A lot of people just cant comprehend the psychology of battered woman syndrome, where a spouse is taught to live in constant fear of abuse upon them and their children.
I fear a poorly trained police department, enamored of a man and blind to his behavior, will see this verdict as vindication of its actions. It is not. Over the course of this trial, its recklessness was exposed, and it must live with that tainted reputation.
I am disgusted by a district attorney who in this and several other cases has shown he is so blinded by ambition that he has forgotten the mission, values and vision of his office and feels the need to step on the weak and vulnerable.
I am sorry for 12 citizens and Dave Lauts family, who must realize every day for the rest of their lives that they have sent a battered woman to jail for protecting herself and her child. This man ruined Janes life while he was alive, and now the courts have continued to do so after his death.
And for Jane, I know you are a religious woman, so I believe your God knows there is no greater love than that of a mother protecting her child. It is a very sad day.
Deborah Goss, Ventura
TREVI Italian Restaurant, located at the heart of The Forum Shops at Caesars, will welcome families for Easter Sunday with food and drink specials available exclusively on Sunday, April 5 (Photo credit: Executive Chef Peter Scaturro).
Executive Chef Peter Scaturro will offer a specialty holiday dish of grilled marinated New Zealand lamb chops served with mint basil pesto risotto and grilled asparagus, priced at $34.95.
TREVI will also feature a limited-time jelly bean gelato for dessert, starting at $4.50 per scoop, along with a festive Peep-tini cocktail for $9 made with marshmallow vodka and garnished with the classic Peeps candy. TREVIs signature happy hour frozen Bellinis will be offered for $4 throughout the day.
Chad's President Idriss Deby is expected to win a fifth term in office as voters cast ballots in Sunday's election.
Deby, who is facing 13 challengers, has led the country since 1990 when he seized power in a coup.
The country has seen its economy boosted during Deby's time thanks to oil production, and its military is a key part in the regional fight against the Nigeria-based militant group Boko Haram.
But not everyone is happy with the president. Protesters rallying against the government in recent weeks have been met by police using tear gas to break up the demonstrations.
In February, Deby pledged that if given another term he would reinstate term limits that were scrapped in 2005.
He said the "life of the nation was in danger" when the decision was made to end the limits and that now there is nothing requiring a system where "changing leaders becomes difficult."
Djibouti opposition leaders are rejecting the results of the country's presidential election, citing fraud.
Djiboutis ruling party declared on Saturday that President Ismail Omar Guelleh won Fridays presidential election, gaining nearly 87 percent of the votes.
Three candidates who ran against the incumbent told VOA Somali the result was false.
The independent candidate Mohamed Muse Tourtour said, "A national vote-stealing occurred, it is false and I will not accept it."
Jama Abdirahman Djama, another independent candidate, said, I warned that the will of people not to be repressed, but the results show what I warned just happened.
Omar Elmi Kheyre, the Union of National Salvation (USN) candidate, said all opposition parties are united "not to accept the results, and the president deceived the public.
Boycots
Some opposition parties boycotted the election after Guelleh, who was always the clear front-runner, went back on his earlier decision not to run.
Opposition leaders say they plan in the next few days to issue a joint communique and demonstrate against the outcome.
But the country's election commission denies the opposition claims, saying the election process was held without a problem and in accordance with Djibouti and international law.
Abdi Ismail Hirsi, who heads the election commission, told VOA the candidates have the right to accept or reject the results, and should refer their claims to the constitutional council.
Guelleh, who has been in power since 1999, starts another five-year presidential term.
About 100 people died and hundreds of others were injured in a massive fire that broke out at a temple in the southern Indian state of Kerala early Sunday where thousands had gathered to witness a fireworks display being held as a part of an annual religious festival.
The tragedy took place around 3 a.m. a few hours after the fireworks display started near the Puttingal Devi Temple in the coastal town of Paravur in Kollam district, about 70 kilometers from the state capital, Thiruvananthapuram.
Officials said a shed where a huge quantity of fireworks was stored went up in flames after a spark fell on it, setting off a series of massive explosions and a blaze that spread quickly.
The office of the temple authorities was reduced to rubble and part of the temple roof also caved in. Huge plumes of smoke billowed into the night sky.
A stampede ensued as panic spread and many were injured as they tried to flee the flames.
Disaster teams have reached the coastal town. The armed forces are assisting the massive effort to transport the injured and those who have suffered burn injuries to hospitals.
Naval spokesman D.K. Sharma told VOA that helicopters and three naval ships have been dispatched to take the injured to bigger towns in the state.
"The helicopters will be used to establish the air bridge between Kollam and Trivandurum, and once the casualties reach Trivandrum, (colonial name for Thiruvananthapuram), they will be airlifted to Cochin. The ships have already reached with medical equipment, medical assistance, doctors, the specialists," Sharma told VOA.
Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said permission had not been granted for the fireworks display and temple authorities had flouted rules in conducting it.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi headed to the disaster site with a team of specialist doctors.
In a tweet Modi called the fire at the temple heart-rending and shocking beyond words and said My thoughts are with families of the deceased and prayers with the injured."
Focus on injured
After surveying the scene of the disaster, Chandy said the focus is on treating those who are injured and have suffered burns.
About 300 persons are admitted to different hospitals. Sufficient medical facilities are available here and we are giving the best medical care to all the persons, he told reporters.
WATCH: Related video of fire at Indian temple
Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the central government will assist the state government in rescue operations.
As soon as we came to know about the fire, the teams have been alerted, Singh said.
Investigation
An investigation has been ordered into the tragic blaze. The fireworks display at the temple is a tradition that dates back many decades and is usually a competition between two teams.
Pyrotechnic shows are usually banned at temples in the Kollam district and rules stipulate that fireworks should be stored more than 100 meters away from temples.
The southern Kerala state is dotted with many Hindu temples, and the Puttingal Devi temple was built at a site where locals believe a goddess appeared many centuries ago.
Macedonian police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at hundreds of migrants as they tried to break through a border fence on the Greek side of the countries' shared border.
Macedonian officials said a group of migrants left their camp Sunday and stormed toward the fence after rumors had spread through the camp that Macedonia would be opening its border.
When Macedonian police denied this, hundreds of migrants tried to scale the fence, while others threw stones demanding to be allowed to cross.
Police said the incident took place at the Idomeni border crossing in northern Greece where more than 10,000 migrants and refugees have been stranded since mid-February after Balkan nations closed off access to their borders.
The clashes began soon after some 500 migrants gathered close to the fence. Activists on Saturday had distributed fliers, in Arabic, calling for the migrants to gather at the fence Sunday morning.
A delegation of five migrants asked Macedonian police whether the border was about to open. When Macedonian police denied this, more than 100 hundred migrants, including several children, tried to scale the fence.
Doctors from the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said dozens of people were injured, many of them suffering respiratory problems, others with slight injuries from rubber bullets.
Macedonia and other Balkan countries to its north have closed their borders, on what was once the busiest migrant route to central Europe. The European Union has said it will only accept war refugees from Syria and Iraq as well as those from other countries who are eligible for asylum.
Nigerias information minister is denying media reports the Islamist militant group Boko Haram is demanding $50 million from the government as ransom before releasing the abducted Chibok schoolgirls.
President Muhammadu Buhari promised to do all he can to ensure the release of the school girls, following his recent meeting with parents of the abducted girls at the presidential villa in the capital, Abuja.
Information Minister Lai Mohammed said ransom reports are not new.
It appears we have several versions of this report. The one that we heard was from a source that [Boko Haram] wants to release 10 of these girls for 1 million euros," Mohammed said.
'Gone through this' before
"But the most important thing is that weve gone through this route before, and until and when we establish the credibility of this source and the truth behind it, the government will not be in a hurry to make a statement. However, government is using its own channels to authenticate the credibility of this source, he said.
Mohammed said accusations the Buhari administration appears not to be doing enough to secure the release of the more than 200 Chibok girls is not fair.
No day passes without the issue of the kidnapped girls not being at the front burner. But these are highly security and intelligence issues, which cannot always be discussed openly," he said. "But I can assure you that for this government, the return of these girls is what is going to bring the final closure on the Boko Haram terrorism and we are working very hard, daily on it.
Mohammeds remarks came after the government announced it has made significant progress in the fight against Boko Haram.
The administration said it has technically defeated Boko Haram. But critics say the militants continued attacks unarmed civilians, including the use of suicide bombers, shows Boko Haram remains potent, despite the governments reports.
Those who say that are being very unfair to us," Mohammed said.
"We inherited a very bad situation where the trail had gone cold, despite that every day we send out reports, we receive [information] some of them are phony some of them are just there to excoriate government.
Daily reports
"But the truth of the matter is that its not a matter that the government is taking lightly. Those who want a daily report on what we are doing, of course in security that does not happen. But we have channels of information in which we make available on a need to know basis, he said.
Mohammed said Nigerias military has been able to wrestle control of territories previously under the control of the Boko Haram militants. He also said the militants have been dislodged from their fortresses, including their main operation center in the Sambisa Forest.
What we have today is cowardly attacks on soft targets. ... And Nigeria has moved on from that and we are now concentrating very much on the rehabilitation, resettlement of those who are displaced. And I think the fact that one of the most wanted persons all over the world was captured without even firing a shot last week. ... I think, is evidence so far of Nigerias success in dealing with terrorism," he said.
A main political rival in Pakistan has demanded that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif step down, after documents leaked from a Panama-based law firm revealed his children own several offshore companies.
The revelations have dominated debates in Pakistani political circles and the media, mostly critical of Sharif for allegedly concealing his familys offshore property.
Sharif has denied any wrongdoing by himself or his sons, and last week he announced the establishment of a judicial commission to be headed by a retired judge to determine the facts.
But his main political rival, Imran Khan, in a televised speech Sunday, rejected the commission as an attempt to cover up corruption of the Sharif family.
I am demanding Mr. Prime Minister, on behalf of the Pakistani nation, that you resign because you have lost moral authority to rule Pakistan or ask the people to pay taxes, Khan asserted.
He vowed to stage a sit-in protest rally outside Sharifs family residence in Raiwind, near the eastern city of Lahore, if the prime minister does not quit. But he gave no date for that ultimatum.
Khan said his party will give the government until April 24 to take appropriate actions like hiring the services of international auditors and the formation of an inquiry commission under the leadership of Pakistans chief justice to investigate charges of corruption, money laundering, tax evasion and perjury.
Pakistani Information Minister Pervaiz Rasheed rejected Khans allegations and demands as baseless and childish.
Khans Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf party staged a big sit-in protest outside parliament in late 2014. For weeks, his supporters refused to disperse, demanding that Prime Minister Sharif step down over allegations of fraud in the 2013 parliamentary election. The demonstration formally ended after a Taliban attack on a school in the city of Peshawar killed 150 people, mostly children.
I promise my nation that until justice is done and accountability is ensured, I will not back down this time, Khan warned in his Sunday speech.
The so-called Panama Papers leak named Sharif's two sons, Hussain Nawaz and Hassan Nawaz, and daughter Maryam Safdar as owners of several offshore companies.
A family spokesman, in a statement, insisted the documents alleged no wronging because no illegal means were involved in establishing the assets.
The Philippine military said Sunday that 18 of its soldiers were killed and more than 50 others were wounded in a 10-hour firefight with Abu Sayyaf extremists in the southwestern island province of Basilan.
A military spokesman said at least five militants died and 20 others were wounded in Saturday's fighting. He said the dead included a Moroccan national.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that an entire military platoon "was wiped out" and that four of the soldiers were beheaded. The fighting was described as the worst single day of government combat casualties in the region this year.
Authorities said the military force had been hunting the militants in Basilan and nearby Joso island for the past two weeks, in a push to free as many as 18 captive foreigners, including several Canadians and a European kidnapped from a local beach resort last year.
Abu Sayyaf later released videos in which some of the captives pleaded for their governments to secure their freedom. Militants had also threatened to behead their prisoners if their ransom demands were not met by Friday.
Military authorities quoted by The Associated Press said many of the militants engaged Saturday were armed with grenade launchers, and that they were able to reinforce their ranks quickly as the fighting raged near the Basilan towns of Tipo Tipo and Al-Barka.
Abu Sayyaf a splinter grouping of the now-disbanded Moro Islamic Front was founded in 1991 with funding from al-Qaida. It has been designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations, Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, United Arab Emirates, Britain and the United States.
Its current leader, Isnilon Totoni Hapilon, swore allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2014.
Belgian prosecutors said Sunday the terror cell linked to the November attacks in Paris was planning a second attack in France, but last month decided to hit Brussels instead.
The Brussels bombings at an airport and metro station killed 32 people and came days after police arrested key Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam in the city's Molenbeek area following a four-month manhunt.
Prosecutors said Sunday the cell was "surprised by the speed of the progress in the ongoing investigation" and shifted their plan to a quick attack in Brussels instead.
There was widespread speculation following the March 22 bombings that Abdeslam's arrest triggered the cell to act.
The statement from Belgium's Federal Prosecution Office came a day after it said another Paris attack suspect, Mohamed Abrini, told investigators he was the "man in the hat" seen accompanying the two suicide bombers who blew themselves up at the Brussels airport.
Police searched for him for weeks after the blasts before arresting him Friday along with four other people.All five were charged with participating in "terrorist murders" and "activities of a terrorist group."
Authorities also confirmed the arrest of a sixth person in connection with the Brussels attacks, but did not give further details.
South Sudan's opposition faction is calling recent comments by the countrys army chief of staff, anti-peace and anti-democracy."
Last week army chief of staff Paul Malong Awan said as long as he lives, former vice president and rebel leader Riek Machar will never become president of the worlds newest nation.
Speaking during a visit to his home village of Malualkon, General Awan did not say how he would prevent the opposition political leader from becoming president.
Machar spokesman James Gatdet Dak condemned Awan's comments as "an unfortunate reminder that there are senior political and military officials of the government in Juba who are not for peace and democracy."
Machar to travel to Juba
Awans comments came after Machar announced plans to return trip to Juba on April 18 to take up his position as the countrys first vice president to form a transitional unity government under a 2015 peace accord that ended more than two years of civil war.
Elections, including presidential contests, according to the peace agreement, will be conducted at the end of 30 months of transitional period.
Dak said Awan had no right or power to deny a citizen or political leader his or her right to contest for the South Sudan presidency.
The spokesman said Awan's comments bring into question the government's commitment to peace.
He added, "This has raised a serious concern about the way the implementation of the peace agreement is heading. This means there is underlying plan by General Paul Malong Awan to violate the peace agreement, and even to harm Dr. Machar.
Dak said that he wished that President Salva Kiir came out and denounced what his army chief of staff has declared, calling the comments anti-peace and anti-democracy.
'Clear the air'
"This would clear the air and assure the rest that what the army chief of staff has said is not shared by the president, Dak said.
Supporters of the government said Awans pronouncements are his and should not be misconstrued to be a reflection of Kiirs government.
They contend that as a citizen the army chief has a right to express his personal opinion. They also said Awans statement should not affect Machars planned trip to Juba.
Dak said the controversy will not affect Machar's plans to return to Juba.
But still we are worried the comments may be backed by negative actions," he added.
Three people were killed and six were injured early Saturday in an attack staged by suspected leftist Shining Path rebels on the eve of Peru's presidential election, authorities said.
The attack, in a remote coca-growing region of the Andean nation, occurred as military officials transported materials for the election, the head of Peru's armed forces, Jorge Moscoso, told reporters.
Two of the victims were military personnel and the third was a civilian driver, he said.
The Maoist-inspired Shining Path guerrilla group was largely dismantled in the 1990s, but hundreds of insurgents still control swaths of a jungle-covered region of Peru known for its production of coca, the raw material for cocaine.
"This is a sign that more still needs to be done," said outgoing President Ollanta Humala, a former army officer. "Terrorists are no longer a threat to the Peruvian state, but they have shown they can still cause harm."
Peruvians will vote Sunday in the fourth presidential election since the end of a decade-long battle between insurgents and state security forces commanded by former President Alberto Fujimori that claimed an estimated 69,000 lives.
Fujimori is now serving a 25-year sentence for ordering death squads to massacre civilians in his crackdown on rebels.
The legacy of the conflict one of Latin America's bloodiest has surfaced in this year's presidential race as Peruvians who credit Fujimori with stamping out the Shining Path rally behind his daughter, front-runner Keiko Fujimori.
Keiko Fujimori is the clear favorite in Sunday's election but is not expected to win outright with a simple majority. She has marketed herself as the candidate who is toughest on crime.
Does expelliarmus work on pirates? Photo: Warner Brothers
British spy agency GCHQ helped keep one of the entries of J.K. Rowlings beloved book series out of the hands of those-who-shall-not-be-named, meaning pirates. I remember the British spy eavesdropping station GCHQ rang me up and said weve detected an early copy of this book on the Internet, Rowlings publisher Nigel Newton told Australias ABC Radio when discussing the publishing history of the series. I got him to read a page to our editor and she said no, thats a fake, said Newton, founder and chief executive of Potter publishing house Bloomsbury, describing the spies as good guys.
A spokesman for GCHQ said: We do not comment on our defense against the dark arts.
It remains to be seen whether Rowling, who has written seven novels worth of tweets in the last couple of years, will employ the spies to protect her latest Harry Potter book.
Everyones favorite bigamist is back! And shes having a very bad day.
As Outlander season two debuts, Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp Randall Fraser finds herself in the same Scottish stone circle that initially sent her careening 200 years into the past, scrabbling at the ground and screaming at an indifferent sky. Shes in 1948 again. Within minutes, shes back in a hospital, acting surly and withdrawn, as though she had crossed over to the set of Girl, Interrupted. You would think shed at least be pleased to reacquaint herself with modern conveniences like vaccines and indoor plumbing. She doesnt even seem happy to see her loyal, loving (first) husband, Frank, whose only sin is that he resembles a certain 18th-century English sadist who tortured her equally loyal, loving (other) husband, Jamie.
Well, if it werent soapier than a car wash, it wouldnt be Outlander. At its best, the show along with the addictive Diana Gabaldon novels on which it is based is a literate fantasy, in which a strong-willed, intelligent woman gets to have great sex and fantastic adventures in two very different time periods. At its worst, however, its clunky melodrama. Through a Glass, Darkly delivers dollops of both.
The first thing Claire does upon encountering a 20th-century stranger is to demand of him who won the Battle of Culloden. Because shes in Scotland, a place that values its history to the point of fetishization, the man is surprised but nevertheless able to tell her that England was victorious in 1746. (If she were in America, a stranger chosen at random probably wouldnt be able to tell her who won the Civil War.) Claire emotes again. Later on in the episode, when we finally leave the postwar U.K. and join up with a much more cheerful Claire and Jamie in 18th-century Le Havre, we find out why: She had planned to change the course of history by preventing the Jacobite uprising, which doomed the Scottish Highlands clans. Despite Claires best efforts, she apparently failed. More than 1,000 fighters still went to their death on the moors and Jamie probably joined them.
Still, as Through a Glass, Darkly makes clear, Claires vain efforts will be the focus of Outlanders second season. Were going to watch as she and Jamie try to undermine the rebellion from France, aided by Jamies dour but trustworthy kinsman, Murtagh, as well as his cheerful cousin, Jared. They get an inauspicious start when Claire alienates a local nobleman: She diagnoses his ships crew with smallpox, and a harbormaster forces the nobleman to burn the cargo along with the ship to prevent contagion. Claire thinks she is working on behalf of the greater good, because Claire always thinks she is working on behalf of the greater good, but shes made a powerful enemy at a time when she and her husband are trying to accumulate friends.
Going forward, at least she and Jamie will have the power of booze on their side. Jared puts Jamie in charge of his successful wine business while he sails to the West Indies, and who will want to bite the hand thats filling their cup?
Though we know in advance Claire and Jamie wont succeed in wining, dining, and subverting the political intentions of the 18th-century French elite, its hard not to prefer this story. It has high stakes, intrigue, excitement, royalty, and oh-so-many bodices just waiting to be ripped. The 1940s story line, meanwhile, has Harvard? Well, Harvard and a heartbroken Claire trying to forget about Jamie while moving to Boston to become a staid academics wife.
Almost the only thing that the 1940s story line has going for it is Tobias Menzies. Last season, he was terrifying as the charismatic villain Jonathan Black Jack Randall, and now hes somehow also compelling as Randalls much more decent descendant, Frank. Very few people could stand up to Sam Heughans Jamie as a potential love interest from the eyes to the abs, Heughan is a Harlequin cover come to life (and he can actually act) but Menzies isnt intimidated. Dapper and trim in his three-piece suits, Frank serves as a perfect foil, like a chilled white wine next to Heughans full-bodied red.
Luckily, the shows IMDB page is here to reassure us: Even in France, our heroes have not managed to escape Randall, so we have plenty more Menzies in both guises to look forward to this season.
The episode contains one final twist: Claire reveals that she returned to the 1940s in what people would tactfully refer to as a delicate condition. Yes, as was first revealed in last seasons finale, Claire is still pregnant. After smashing up a garage in a fit of rage, Frank returns to Claire and tells her he wants them to be a family anyway. But is white wine really ready to raise red wines baby?
Hillary Clinton doesnt know how many states shes lost recently, but the number of holes in her wall suggests seven. No matter, her home state (besides Arkansas and Illinois) of New York is coming up, and shes armed and ready if she can figure out how to get through the subway turnstile, of course. Oh, and whats that? Bernie made friends with a bird? Hillary has three-eyed raven from Game of Thrones at her beck and call. Its certainly more intense than the average bird, but that doesnt make it any less qualified to do, um, bird things. Yeah, this metaphor is falling apart.
The skies never opened wide Saturday, but wet clouds and a shower at about 3 p.m. may have been enough to keep some people away from the fifth annual Art on Elm Avenue, expanded this year by two blocks and new features.
About 40 artists displayed works in the Brazos Events Center at 520 Elm Ave., and the front of the building housing Waco Weddings and Events, 715 Elm Ave., hosted a display of paintings, photographs and drawings by youth.
A new event this year, sponsored by the Waco Poets Society, featured poetry recitals by youth and adults in a building at the intersection of Dallas Street and Elm Avenue.
Brandy Clark, coordinator with The Opportunity Center serving autistic adults, pointed to a display of paintings by autistic youth in the childrens exhibit.
Autistic people tend to think in concrete terms, she said. This activity helps them get beyond the concrete into their imaginations. It helps all children open up to the world around them. Many of them couldnt imagine themselves doing art, much less producing anything people would buy, before this festival.
Attendance at the festival had been growing by about 1,000 people a year, topping 5,000 last year. At the end of the day Saturday, estimates ranged from 3,000 to 5,000, but Claire Sexton, arts education coordinator for Cultural Arts of Waco, which organized the festival, said she felt sure 4,000 people attended. Sexton said a head count was more difficult than in past years because exhibits were spread over a larger area, and the crowd appeared more sparse. Scattered showers in the region likely discouraged some who would have attended, she said.
More time, more artists
Organizers blocked off Elm Avenue from the 500 to 900 blocks and stretched the festival by two hours, ending at 5 p.m. this year instead of 3 p.m. They also signed up 44 artists, compared with 33 last year, Sexton said.
This was also the first year Cultural Arts of Waco took over the lead in planning from NeighborWorks Waco because the festival had outgrown NeighborWorks capacity to run the festival and focus on its primary mission, she said. NeighborWorks, which focuses on assisting families with homeownership, still provided some assistance Saturday.
The festival featured 33 outdoor booths and three indoor venues.
Out on the avenue, Jacob Hogins, attending for the second year with his mother, Jan Hogins, said, Im impressed with how much theyve expanded this year, and its nice to see a wider age range represented.
At both ends of the street, volunteers offered chalk to people, especially children, to work on the pavement, and drawings filled areas marked off for the activity.
In the middle of the fairway, people viewed a photograph of the 1916 lynching of black teenager Jesse Washington in downtown Waco and were offered markers to record their impressions of current race relations and hopes for the future on large drawing pads.
I dont know how we come to terms with our dark side, said Community Race Relations Coalition board member Joyce Nobis, who was hosting the exhibit. How can we stop racial prejudice? But this picture shows Waco 100 years ago, and were trying to encourage a wholly different Waco in the present. Now well have these sheets with all their messages.
Steve Veracruz was helping manage exhibits by four artists in different media at two adjoining booths sponsored by the Central Texas Artist Collective, a perennial participant in Art on Elm Avenue that takes every feasible chance to promote its members. The group had a booth at the Texas Food Truck Showdown last weekend and has had presences at Comic Con and the Waco Cultural Arts Festival, among other events.
Staying active with art
Were all about collaboration, Veracruz said. Too often, artists will show their work at an event like this and then store it in the closet again for years. We want to inspire our members to keep bringing their work out and keep active with it.
He said he hopes Art on Elm Avenue will grow to offer more in the performing arts.
We could have hoped for a little better weather today, but were happy that the this event is growing, that its a lot bigger, Veracruz said. We need more exposure for all the arts everywhere in the city.
Sexton said, We were happy with the way things went. Well always be looking for ways to do things better, but overall, it was a good day.
Mothers of Robinson High School seniors are using their fundraising network throughout town to benefit one of their own this year.
Each year, a group of moms throws an all-night party called Project Graduation on graduation night for seniors to keep them safe. They spend the year fundraising to offset the cost of prizes and games given out during the party.
But this year, one of the mothers was diagnosed with lung cancer, and the other moms decided to host a garage sale Saturday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 3301 Robinson Drive to offset some of her medical costs.
Mica Cathey was diagnosed with lung cancer about two months ago and is in Houston for medical treatment as her daughter, Haven, prepares to graduate from high school.
Haven Cathey said the Robinson community is her family and has been since before her mom became sick. She said shes grateful for the support the community has shown.
I just want to make sure all her stuff gets paid for, Haven Cathey said. I can always get a job to help out with my expenses.
Project Graduation President Jackie Salazar said she has been thrilled with the amount of donations and hopes they can raise at least $3,000.
The group also set up a bank account for people to donate at Fidelity Bank of Texas in Robinson.
Moms arent the only ones helping out. Haven Catheys classmates began hearing of her mothers situation and have shown up to help with the effort.
Senior Ricky Gilmore, 18, sorted garage sale donations the week before the sale and said he plans to recruit other students to help work Saturday.
Ive known Haven for quite some time, and shes a really kind person altogether. And if something like this happened to me, I know she would be there for me, Gilmore said.
Haven Cathey said shes extremely grateful for the support she and her mom have received during the treatments.
Were definitely grateful, especially since its just me and my mom, really, she said.
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If you go
What: Garage sale to benefit Robinson High School mother Mica Cathey, who was recently diagnosed with lung cancer
When, where: 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at 3301 Robinson Drive
More info: Donations can also be made at Fidelity Bank of Texas in Robinson
Assemble all the facts, rumors, conjecture and findings of the McLennan County Elections Commission regarding the March 1 joint primary election debacle that left some voters feeling disenfranchised over a narrowly decided county commissioner race and you get at least two possible scenarios.
Scenario One: Longtime, much-respected McLennan County Elections Administrator Kathy Van Wolfe was undermined by a disloyal employee, Karen Hall, who failed to carry out her assigned tasks and lied about it. Weeks later Van Wolfe fired Hall, her second-in-command, saying the errors in the election continue to haunt this office.
Scenario Two: Van Wolfe was out of her depth in electoral complexities, failed to smartly anticipate necessary changes in Election Day protocol and, after problems erupted, scapegoated Hall as well as an election equipment vendor, election judges, poll workers and even ignorant voters in a frantic, month-long bid to keep her job.
What makes all this ironic is that, if Halls account in Thursdays Trib is credible, Van Wolfe after the March 1 election nonetheless had Hall employ her technological savvy in setting up May 7 city and school elections and the May 24 primary election runoff and then, after having Hall do last-minute trouble-shooting on March 28, called her to a meeting with the countys personnel director and handed her a detailed termination notice carefully prepared in advance.
She was totally using me so that all the May elections would be done before she kicked me out the door, Hall told the Trib. And if Im a liar and my honesty and integrity are being questioned, why do you have me doing that?
So much for McLennan Countys first joint primary election employing vote centers, allowing voters to cast ballots anywhere in the county. Election Day brought unexpectedly long lines and several hundred incorrectly issued ballots, raising doubts about the Precinct 1 county commissioner race and prompting a legal challenge.
To add intrigue to all this, one wing of the local Republican Party supposedly got crossways with Van Wolfe some time ago, figuring Hall might better serve the public. Hall denies any involvement in such moves but says the talk poisoned relations with her boss.
My impression of the elections office over the years: Van Wolfe had the management smarts and a solid grasp of election law as well as shifting voter patterns throughout our growing county; Hall had the technological chops necessary to put it all to work. In short, Van Wolfe knew where all the light switches were, Hall knew how to take them apart and fix the wiring when necessary. Nothing wrong there.
So long as Van Wolfe managed with the right balance of resolve, energy, diplomacy and know-how, all should have run smoothly. However, her termination notice for Hall obtained through a public information request by Trib staff writer Cassie L. Smith suggests office problems that, as Van Wolfe correctly wrote, caused major errors, additional costs, tremendous stress and a voting population that is suspect of the election offices future capability to perform competent, error-free elections.
But where did these problems arise? Did Van Wolfes second-in-command fail to conduct all the electoral tests required of her (as Van Wolfe claims) or was she never assigned all the electoral tests to ensure a smooth election (as Hall claims)? And who trained election judges on relevant election protocol, for how long, in what areas? One might argue the local elections commission is right that such details are not really the province of the commission and should be left to Van Wolfe to properly handle. Yet what if the reluctance of the commission to aggressively scrutinize the situation results in more problems? In any case, the elections commission dismissed Halls request to furnish evidence in this imbroglio.
One might think May elections would vindicate one side or the other in this she said/she said spectacle, but given that Hall apparently worked on these before getting the boot, who can really say? One things sure: Considering that election fraud is such a concern in Texas, its amazing a lot of this is being given a pass. One wonders how county commissioners will react upon receiving the election commissions final report.
Many Americans like to talk about the right to vote being sacred, but in this case plenty of people treated it as something far less probably more than well ever fully realize or admit.
We now know how big the Republican Partys Donald Trump problem is: so big that some in the GOP have convinced themselves the solution is U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas
Yes, the erstwhile government-shutter-downer trails Hillary Clinton by only 3.1 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average, as opposed to Trumps 10.8-point deficit.
But be skeptical: Those polls probably exaggerate Cruzs electability, which may diminish further if he gets the nomination and the general electorate focuses on his ideology even if his opponent is the unloved Clinton.
A lackluster economy and irritation at poor government performance dominate voters concerns, just as Cruz says; whether Americans think Cruzs purist brand of conservatism represents the best way to deal with them is another question entirely.
Abolish the IRS, Cruz cried after his recent Wisconsin primary victory repeating a promise that, whatever its merits, only 34 percent of Americans favor, according to a recent Gallup poll. The same survey showed that only 18 percent support Cruzs plan to eliminate the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce and Housing and Urban Development.
As Gallups Frank Newport explained: Our research . . . shows that only about a third of Americans favor limiting government to performing only basic functions, a third favor government being empowered to do all it can to fix problems and a third are in the middle between these two extremes. Thus, Cruz is simply fighting an apparent uphill battle with the public taken as a whole in his philosophical position that government must be scaled back.
On taxes, only 51 percent of Americans think their federal income taxes are too high, according to Gallup down 17 points since the start of the new century. Meanwhile, 52 percent of Americans, including 29 percent of Republicans, agree with a proposition Cruz rejects: Government should redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich. Only 45 percent favor Cruzs 10 percent flat-tax proposal.
Cruz is on firmer ground, potentially, with Obamacare, every word of which he has sworn to repeal, and which has an approval rating that is still 12.6 points under water, according to the RealClearPolitics average. However, a lot will depend on his ability to articulate an alternative.
The health plan he has sketched, based in part on individual accounts, may be difficult to sell given a fresh Pew Research Center finding that Americans, by a 51 percent to 46 percent margin, think universal health coverage is a federal responsibility; thats a reversal of how they viewed the matter two years ago.
The big picture in American politics is partisan polarization, coupled with a discernible leftward shift of the political center on domestic issues, especially the social issues upon which Cruz has relied to fire up conservative evangelical Christians.
Though the Democrats advantage over the GOP in voter identification is not particularly large eight points, according to Gallup 24 percent of Americans now accept the no-longer execrated label liberal, up seven points since 1992. Conservative, meanwhile, held steady at 37 percent.
Also per Gallup, Americans by a 51 to 43 margin say government should not promote any set of values, rather than promoting traditional values, a reversal of the historical norm.
The backlash against gay marriage has proven astonishingly weak, limited mainly to state laws aimed at preserving religious objections to participation in same-sex nuptials, which Cruz has backed but which most Americans seem to reject.
Heck, even on Cuba, Cruz, who opposes President Obamas outreach to the Castro regime, is well to the right of most Americans: 54 percent now regard that Communist island favorably, according to Gallup.
In short, Cruz is offering America an updated version of the original 1980 Ronald Reagan package small government, tax cuts, traditional values, strong defense at a time when that package is no longer nearly as compelling to most Americans as it was 36 years ago.
Whereas Reagan offered a course correction from the excesses of the 1960s, which voters blamed on Democratic liberalism, todays voters are still reeling from two shocks, the Iraq War and the Great Recession, which they associate with the Republican presidency of George W. Bush.
No doubt Cruz, despite the bombast and disruptiveness that even his Republican colleagues have found off-putting in the Senate, would be, for lack of a better word, a much less embarrassing GOP nominee than Trump. But anyone who thinks todays America longs for a purist Reaganite should reflect on this: In every 2016 poll that pitted the two men against each other head to head, Cruz has lost, by an average margin of 9.8 points, to Bernie Sanders.
Charles Lane is a Post editorial writer, specializing in economic policy, federal fiscal issues and business. He is a contributor to the PostPartisan blog and a regular guest on Fox News.
Do your job!
I am appalled by the McLennan County Elections Commissions attempt to sweep under the rug the fiasco that was the joint primary election in March. County Judge Scott Felton does not appear to realize that, as chair of the elections commission, it is his duty to ensure all relevant facts pertaining to this matter are thoroughly investigated. I remind him that Section 31.037 of the Texas Election Code clearly states: The employment of the county elections administrator may be suspended, with or without pay, or terminated at any time for good and sufficient cause.
According to state code, it is the absolute responsibility of election commissioners to look into all aspects of what caused the problem, leading to the disenfranchisement of 800 or more voters. This means interviewing not just Elections Administrator Kathy Van Wolfe but election employees, election judges, election clerks and anyone else who could assist in uncovering the full truth of what transpired.
At the elections commission meeting last week, Ms. Van Wolfe said election judges received some five hours of training. As a former election judge myself, I received around one hour of training, which was so poorly conducted by Ms. Van Wolfe, combined with a mountain of paperwork to wade through, that it was inevitable that at some point serious mistakes would happen. Election judges time sheets for general elections are verifiable documentary evidence of the actual amount of training given, the lack of which was a key part of last months problem.
Judge Feltons actions thus far resemble a court scenario where a judge asks the accused, Did you steal that car? To which the accused replies, No. So the judge then says, OK, youre free to go.
Do the job to which you were elected, Mr. Felton, and conduct a full and public investigation into this matter. Only then can you restore faith in our county election process in the eyes of the public.
John W. Hall, Waco
EDITORS NOTE: Mr. Hall is the husband of Karen Hall, who was fired from the local elections office on March 28 and whose request to speak before the commission was rejected.
Politically correct
This is a challenge to all local teachers of English regarding the Associated Press article of April 3 titled PepsiCo CEO asks N. Carolina governor to repeal LGBT law. The lead paragraph reads: The CEO of PepsiCo Inc. has joined the growing list of company heads and municipal officials voicing opposing (sic) to North Carolinas new law that prevents specific anti-discrimination rules for LGBT people for public accommodations and restroom use.
Ask your students whether the list is or is not in favor of discrimination against LGBT people. If they get the answer right, begin immediately to groom them for political jobs!
Rick Rickerson, McGregor
The daughter of The Fast and The Furious star Paul Walker reached a $US10.1 million ($A13.4 million) settlement with the estate of the man driving the car her father died in three years ago, court records show.
The estate of Roger Rodas, a longtime friend of Walker's who was driving the Porsche Carrera GT in which the two men died after a wild 2013 crash, agreed to place more than $US7.2 million in a trust for Walker's teenage daughter, Meadow, according to terms of a settlement that was reached in November 2014.
Walker was on a break from filming when his Porsche smashed into several trees and a concrete light pole in Valencia in November 2013. Credit:Jason Merritt
Nearly $US2.9 million was set aside for legal fees, records show.
Walker was on a break from filming the seventh installment in the Furious series when he and Rodas decided to drive away from a charity event in Valencia on November 30, 2013. Investigators said the vehicle was travelling at least 145km/h when it smashed into several trees and a concrete light pole on Hercules Street. Both men died within seconds.
Broken up into six chapters including "Mind, Body, Spirit", "Relationships" and "About Kyly Clarke", the new mum has produced the literary version of saccharine.
Kyly and Michael Clarke at a party at Paddington's The Royal Hotel to celebrate the release of Mrs Clarke's book.
True to You is a miniature coffee table book containing some of Mrs Michael Clarke's favourite uplifting mantras. The glossy tome is page after page of bite-sized "thoughts for an inspiring life" with various photos of Clarke the model and candle maker fondling herbs, sitting at a laptop and almost eating a strawberry.
Kyly Clarke may have dedicated her new book to her baby daughter but it's really a homage to Kathy Bates' fragile character from Fried Green Tomatoes.
Together with her husband, Clarke launched her latest project last week over an intimate lunch at Paddington's The Royal Hotel. The perfect setting given Sydney's affluent Eastern suburbs types appear to be her target audience. The $25 book is an extension of her lifestyle blog, Lyfestyled, where readers are encouraged to make "all aspects of your life beautiful. From your fitness routine to your fashion philosophy to your home decoration plan."
Part Gwyneth Paltrow 'Goopness', part therapy session, True to You does not endorse ramming cars in your local shopping centre car park screaming "Towanda", instead Clarke suggests a more serene outlook: "You can either be happy or right: you choose."
Here are three things I learnt from reading True to You:
1. The downward-facing dog is better for you than an actual puppy
"The happiest people are in touch with their spiritual sides. This doesn't necessarily mean they follow an organised religion, just that they value peaceful and harmonious activities like yoga, reading, going for a walk or meditating."
According to London's The Telegraph, since her divorce from Prince Andrew, Fergie has made up to $4 million a year from a variety of roles, including as an ambassador for Weight Watchers. She lost more than $6 million in the collapse of Hartmoor, her US lifestyle and wellness company.
While her fiscal abilities could clearly do with some improvement, there is no denying that her attempts to make a buck have provided us with some rather interesting episodes, from that disastrous tabloid sting when she was caught out trying to sell access to her former husband, which she later described to Oprah Winfrey as her "gutter" moment, to hoisting herself atop a tiny Wedgwood tea cup in front of hundreds of bemused shoppers in downtown Sydney to prove just how strong the fine porcelain was.
Whether she realises it or not, Fergie has actually been responsible for a multimillion-dollar industry which would not exist without her, though she'd probably rather it didn't.
This is the same woman to whom the late Princess Margaret famously wrote in the late 1990s saying: "You have done more to bring shame on the royal family than could ever have been imagined. Not once have you hung your head in embarrassment, even for a minute. Clearly you have never considered the damage you are doing us all. How dare you discredit us?''
For decades she was one of the great cash cows for an entire media industry which documented her various travails, from the Fleet Street tabloids to the pages of Woman's Day and New Idea.
A 40-year-old woman is assisting police with an investigation into the death of man in Maddington in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Police were called to a house on Cedar Way at 1am after reports a man had been stabbed.
A woman is assisting police with their investigation into the stabbing death of a man in Maddington.
The 41-year-old was rushed to Royal Perth Hospital in a critical condition but died a short time later.
New York: Conservative forces working against Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump in New York aren't expecting him to lose the state's April 19 primary - they're just working to keep him from getting 50 per cent of the state's vote.
Of the 95 total Republican delegates on offer in the Empire State, 81 are allocated according to voting in each of New York's 27 Congressional districts. A candidate winning 50 per cent of the vote in a single district earns 3 delegates.
The remaining delegates are tied to a "winner takes most" formula in which a candidate receiving more than 50 per cent of the vote gets all 14.
Trump is above that threshold, receiving between 52 per cent and 56 per cent of the vote according to a summary of polls by RealClearPolitics. Texas senator Ted Cruz and Ohio governor John Kasich are jostling for second, each with about 20 per cent of the likely total.
by Adrian Gibson
THE Free National Movement is in a quagmire of web. The so-called Official Opposition has become the laughing stock of Bahamian politics and the jokes arent even funny.
With the controversies surrounding the Save The Bays (STB) and Peter Nygard court filings, videos and other revelations including the unpolished, highly questionable response of various government ministers the showdown in the FNM for the chairmans post, in the wake of Michael Pintards resignation, has become the most entertaining sideshow in local politics.
Is the FNM serious? They have gone through the trifecta the good, the bad and now the ugly!
With their streak of bad luck, someone in the FNM mussy tief church money. At this rate, the FNM will soon be renting a chairman (going online at www.rentachairman.com).
At the close of nominations on Monday, the candidates in the race for chairman were former Cabinet Minister and Blue Hills MP, Sidney Collie, and former leader of The Workers Party Rodney Moncur, who ran as the Democratic National Alliances candidate for Bain Town in 2012. Mr Collie is purportedly FNM leader Dr Hubert Minnis choice for the post whilst Mr Moncur, who was denied a nomination for his beloved Bain Town constituency, has decided to enter the race to fire-up a languid FNM machinery.
Strangely, whilst Michael Pintard resigned because he had been mired in controversy since he was named in a lawsuit last month filed against Mr Nygard and his lawyer, Keod Smith, by four STB directors and Reverend CB Moss, the FNM now proposes to nominate and possibly elect Mr Collie a former attorney for Nygard as the partys next national chairman.
Yes, there are those who are howling at the fact that only two people nominated to challenge for the FNMs chairmanship and that, in the case of both, there are detractors who dismiss them as either weak, crazy, insufferable, flimsy, politically unattractive, etc.
Sidney Collie is a sure fire cure for insomnia. To use the words of Republican Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, Mr Collie is very low energy. Mr Collie is, politically, one of the dampest squibs in the box.
In 2008, tongues were wagging throughout the country following Mr Collies sudden resignation as Lands and Local Government Minister in the face of a possible firing and Prime Minister Hubert Ingrahams reshuffling of his Cabinet.
Though I praised him at the time for accepting responsibility for his mistakes, overall Mr Collie was a flimsy minister who performed dismally. He was the first Cabinet minister out of the door in the last Ingraham administration.
According to The Tribune, then PLP chairman Glenys Hanna Martin claimed that she wrote to the former minister (Collie) on June 1, 2008, to advise him of her concerns and urge him not to act contrary to the law.
The letter was copied to Mr Ingraham and then Parliamentary Commissioner Errol Bethel. She also asserted that she had spoken to Mr Collie on several occasions and had personally alerted the Prime Minister about the brewing fiasco. Yet, Mr Collie and his underlings at the department of Local Government stubbornly charged ahead with a flawed poll. In this instance, the tenacious Mrs Hanna Martin truly performed as Opposition chair, and detected and questioned certain erroneous conduct in some of the elections slated to be conducted throughout the Family Islands.
According to Mr Collie, he made mistakes in the process of that years local government elections which led to a court action and the consequent frustration of many Family Island voters.
If these blatant blunders had occurred during a general election, the perception of the Bahamas having fair electoral and democratic procedures would have been tainted and consigned to the bin, while possibly subjecting our elections to intense United Nations/international observation. As a chairman of the FNM, could Mr Collie now better organise Family Island branches and branch elections or would we see more of the disorientated approach that was on display in 2008?
Sidney Collie is a nice guy. He is a salt-of-the-earth fella. I like him. But, he is unexciting. He reminds me of a tuna casserole - edible and perhaps nutritious but youll never remember eating it. He is the type of person who could easily get lost in a crowd.
In an environment where the leader and the deputy leader of the FNM are clamouring for attention and neither can command heads to turn or draw the undivided attention of a crowd, to now triple-down on that makes no sense for the FNM. The FNM needs someone who will excite and interest a politically hungry public offended by the PLP, a public that wants someone who is able to steam-roll the partys chairman Bradley Roberts. The public wants someone who can challenge Mr Roberts, not with venom, but with information, with evidence and quick thinking. They want somebody who will make Bradley Roberts stammer politically!
Relative to the disputed land, Mr Collie negotiated with the government on behalf of Mr Nygard. In documents filed in court and referring to talks with the fashion moguls then-attorney, Mr Collie, the Government said it was its intention to cause the coastline at Simms Point ... to be reinstated.
Does Mr Collies former professional relationship with Mr Nygard now complicate things for the FNM?
Public disappointment in the FNM is due to the fact that the Bahamian people must now stomach an offensive PLP.
I see Mr Collie as neither fish nor fowl. One cant really see him!
On the other hand, cab-driver and radio talk show host Rodney Moncur is vying for the chairmanship. There are those who would say that Mr Moncurs candidacy is yet another doomed attempt on the citadel of power. I disagree.
Say what you may about Rodney Moncur, he is a man of conviction. Yes, he is unpredictable, sometimes hot-headed and sometimes so outspoken that people become uncomfortable or dismiss him with contempt. However, he is a bare-knuckle fighter and, given the FNMs two choices, he is possibly the partys best bet at having a fighting chance against Bradley Roberts.
Some would argue that Mr Moncur can be likened to Donald Trump. Our nations most outspoken Justice of the Peace, Mr Moncur is a well-known social and political activist who, even whilst he has faced his own financial challenges over the years, never gave up his will and fight to assist so many of the poor, downtrodden and victims of seeming injustice.
Over the years, I have developed a great respect for Mr Moncur, who has demonstrated that he is a man of his word, that he is a man of the people and that - regardless of the criticisms - he would fight tooth and nail for a cause that he believes in, even to his own detriment. I respect that. Mr Moncur is an encapsulation of the saying if one doesnt stand for something, they would fall for anything and so he takes various stands to express his approval or discontent with matters that the average citizen might ordinarily shy away from. He has made his political advocacy and public affairs campaigns an intimidating brand where, when one hears that Rodney Moncur has mobilised and is coming, it engenders a deep fear of public embarrassment/exposure as he takes no prisoners and does not mind if, to attain justice and a meaningful end, one refers to him as crazy or a loose cannon.
Mr Moncur says what he thinks and takes the flak that comes with it. He would risk the ridicule of the masses to stand up for his beliefs.
You probably wont agree with him but you will certainly listen to what he has to say and also find that he can articulate reasons for that which he believes. He is not an idiot. He is controversial but he is always prepared and researched. I have heard Mr Moncur make reasonable arguments on various legal issues, analysing the detail with admirable aplomb. He has even pleaded in the courts for people who could not afford legal representation.
Mr Moncur should not be underestimated. He is not the most refined or politically correct person, but he has political and sociological pedigree in the Bahamas. If anyone that you encounter in your day-to-day discourse is real, Mr Moncur is it.
His shortfalls can be his philosophy of certain matters. He reminds me of that Rudyard Kipling poem If:
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute,
With sixty seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything thats in it,
And - which is more - youll be a Man, my son!
Mr Moncurs view on gender is extraordinarily conservative and, for some, borders on misogynistic. If criticism can be levelled at him, it is that some of his views border on grounds of disqualification. However, he will advise and make public his views and so one does not have to guess, no one can accuse him of deception. With Rodney Moncur, you see what you get and that level of honesty is sorely lacking in Bahamian politics - and indeed within the FNM.
I am told that quite a number of FNMs may vote for him. He will likely outwork Mr Collie, even if he is unsuccessful. He will likely be supported heavily by the anti-Minnis bloc of the FNM.
And so it seems that the FNM is only capable of putting up two candidates for the chairmanship. Perhaps that is because of Dr Minnis purported policy that the chairman will not get a constituency nomination and that he would be appointed to the Senate and brought into the Cabinet if the FNM wins. I am only left to assume that Mr Collie then will not be re-nominated for the MICAL constituency.
Since the FNMs choice is between Collie and Moncur ... the partys best bet will likely be Moncur. The race will no doubt be competitive.
_________________________________________________________
First published in the The Tribune under the byline, Young Man's View, here
View Adrian Gibson's archive here
____________________________________________________
The views expressed are those of the author, and not necessarily those of WeblogBahamas.com (which has no corporate view) or its Authors.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Apr. 10, 2016 | 10:55 AM | PADUCAH, KY
A Paducah man faces DUI and criminal mischief charges, after crashing his vehicle into the side of a local business early Sunday morning.
McCracken County Sheriff's deputies responded at around 2:30 am to a crash at 3709 Clarks River Road. Deputies said 35-year-old Jessie Young, of Paducah was driving west on Clarks River Road when he fell asleep, ran off the road and crashed into Papa John's Pizza.
Young was taken by ambulance to a local hospital for treatment of his injuries.
Young was charged with, DUI, criminal mischief and failure to maintain insurance.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/04/2016 (2388 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Two women brought the memory of Cooper Nemeth to life and recalled the search that united a city Saturday at the North End Bell Tower in a meeting with the Bear Clan.
Paige Buors and Ramona Waldner presented the Bear Clan, a volunteer safety patrol in the North End, with a cheque for a little more than $2,000, which they raised from the sale of thousands of rubber bracelets in Coopers memory.
Thousands of followers on social media paid $3 apiece for the wristbands with Coopers name and the hashtag #RememberCip.
RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Paige Buors (right) gives Irene Nemeth, Cooper Nemeths grandmother, a hug Saturday after presenting a cheque to the Bear Clan for $2,337.
Nemeth, last seen alive Feb. 14, was the focus of a search that drew people from across Winnipeg together before its tragic ending.
The body of the 17-year-old was found Feb. 22 after a search that involved hundreds of people, including the Bear Clan, and triggered the bracelet campaign on social media.
Winnipeg resident Nicholas Bell-Wright, 22, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder in connection with the homicide.
That was the wishes of the Nemeths, Buors said, that a portion of the proceeds go to the Bear Clan because theyre a volunteer group.
Members of the Nemeth family accompanied the two women for the cheque presentation and a group photo with the Bear Clan volunteers, greeting the patrol with warm hugs.
The event Saturday evening was held at the Selkirk Avenue location of the Bell Tower, the focus of Friday evening community meetings led by Meet Me Under the Bell Tower leader Michael Redhead Champagne.
The Bear Clan was a big help and inspiration to our family, said Coopers aunt, Larysa Sayles. We were overwhelmed by the Bear Clan contribution, joining the community together. Cooper had great respect for the indigenous community. He would have loved the smudge ceremony.
After Coopers body was found, the safety patrol sent Coopers spirit on its journey home with a traditional smudge ceremony for the grieving family at the Gateway Recreation Complex. More than 1,000 people attended, and it offered hundreds of Winnipeggers their first glimpse of indigenous ceremonial practices.
RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Twenty-year-old Paige Buors presents a cheque for $2,337.00 to James Favel, head of the Bear Clan, from money she raised in making 3,100 bracelets for Cooper Nemeth causes at the Bell Tower Saturday afternoon. See Alex Paul story.April 09, 2016
Buors and Waldner offered to raise funds for a charity of the Nemeths choice and were happy the family wanted a portion to go to the safety patrol.
The women said the Bear Clan helped Coopers family cope with the teens disappearance and subsequent death, and they wanted to help them in return.
Coopers grandparents said their loss united a city, an accomplishment that was the result of the kindness and generosity the safety patrol showed to their family.
It was something positive from something negative. Were happy to be together, Coopers grandmother, Irene Nemeth, said.
On the evening of the smudging ceremony in February, the head of the Bear Clan James Favel said it was unique that the time-honoured healing custom was conducted on such a large scale for a non-indigenous person but it was a sign there was a sense of community growing between indigenous and non-indigenous Winnipeg residents.
The Bear Clan offered to help the Nemeth family because any lost child is a concern of ours, James Favel said at the time.
At the Bell Tower with co-founder Larry Morrissette and others Saturday, Favel thanked the Nemeth family and the fundraisers for their generosity and for the opportunity to help.
Favel told the group reports of the clans work has swept across the country from Labrador to British Columbia, with groups contacting the Winnipeg patrol for help in starting their own safety patrols.
RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Twenty-year-old Paige Buors presents a cheque for $2,337.00 to James Favel, head of the Bear Clan, from money she raised in making 3,100 bracelets for Cooper Nemeth causes at the Bell Tower Saturday afternoon. See Alex Paul story.April 09, 2016
Doors are flying open for us, and youve made all this possible. I want you to share in the joy of whats to come next, Favel said.
Volunteers from Regina and Kenora are coming to Winnipeg next week to meet with Bear Clan volunteers to learn how to get started.
The Bear Clan is an inner city group with indigenous roots whose members volunteer their time to try to make the streets safer.
Since Nemeths death, the Bear Clan has played a prominent role in other searches and ceremonies. Members of the patrol joined hundreds of others on foot, horseback, ATVs and in helicopters in the more recent search for Chase Martens, a two-year-old toddler from the McGregor-Austin area of southwestern Manitoba. He walked away from his familys farm, prompting an outpouring of support from Manitobans. Days later, on March 27, his body was found in a creek behind his family home, devastating his parents. The Bear Clan held a smudging ceremony with candles to light his journey home at the creek side with his family.
alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/04/2016 (2387 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A Winnipeg man is petitioning the federal government to allow Ukrainian citizens to visit Canada without a visa.
More than 2,100 people have signed the petition started by Nick Krawetz in January, and he says he has support from at least half of Manitobas 14 MPs. He said given the support Canada has shown to Ukraine and the 2015 Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement, it doesnt make sense for Canada to continue to require Ukrainian citizens to obtain a visa to visit Canada.
I firmly believe Canadas visa policy to Ukraine is undermining job creation and serving as a barrier to free trade, said Krawetz.
ADRIAN WYLD / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES Manitoba MP James Bezan (Selkirk-Interlake) has sponsored a petition calling for Ukrainians to be allowed to visit Canada without a visa.
He noted Ukraine lifted visa requirements for Canadians 11 years ago.
His petition specifically calls for Canada to allow Ukrainian nationals to visit for up to 90 days without obtaining a visa. However, Krawetz said Canada could follow the European Union in moving to lift visa requirements for Ukrainians who have biometric passports. Those are passports that use smart card technology embedded in a paper passport with biometrical information that can identify the traveller. That can include fingerprints, facial and iris recognition.
Biometric passports are difficult to forge. Ukraine has been issuing such passports since 2015.
Manitoba MP James Bezan (Selkirk-Interlake) has sponsored the petition. He said he agrees if Canada believes in free trade with Ukraine, it should also believe in lifting visa requirements so people can more easily travel between the two countries.
Bezan said Ukraine has not been a problem for Canada when it comes to people arriving as a visitor and then attempting to stay permanently, and he doesnt see any reason to continue requiring tourist visas.
The Conservative MP said he intends to push the issue with the government once the petition closes for signatures next month.
If election promises are upheld, Krawetz may find a friendly ear in the government. Although thus far Krawetz has not received a specific response from Immigration Minister John McCallum, or International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, the Liberals told the Ukrainian Canadian Congress last fall it supported the idea.
Given Canadas long and special relationship with Ukraine, and recognizing the more than 1.3 million Canadians who trace their roots to the country, a Liberal government will work toward achieving this goal, was the Liberal response to an election survey question about lifting the visa requirement.
mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/04/2016 (2387 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
With the Panama Papers drawing attention to the financial dealings of politicians around the world, the leaders of the Manitoba NDP and Manitoba Liberals divulged personal financial information Sunday.
The party thats leading in the polls the Progressive Conservatives said they werent taking the bait set by NDP Leader Greg Selinger, which they called an election stunt and American-style politics.
Selinger invited reporters to his home Sunday to say he hasnt squirrelled away money in foreign bank accounts to avoid paying tax.
MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS NDP leader Greg Selinger invited media into his home to make his 2014 tax return public Sunday morning.
I do not have any off-shore accounts no secret accounts anywhere, Selinger said from his kitchen table at his home in St. Boniface. He invited media to see copies of his 2014 income tax.
What you see is what you get.
His 2014 income was $147,347. A copy of the Canada Revenue Agency statement said his total tax payable for 2014 before deductions was $43,756. Selinger said his income comes from serving as premier and the only property he owns other than his home is a cottage, which belongs to him and his wife, on an island in Lake of the Woods. His wife, Claudette Toupin, owns another cottage her father built. The couple has lived in their old St. Boniface home for 37 years. It was originally a duplex theyve fixed up and added onto.
As we go through these times when people are asking good questions about why you serve in public office, were simply here to serve the people of Manitoba Im just disclosing my tax return to let you know there is nothing complicated about anything that I do. Its pretty straightforward and out front for you to see.
The leak of the so-called Panama Papers 11.5 million documents from four decades of files from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm that sets up off-shore accounts for clients has rattled many world leaders, including prime ministers in Iceland and the United Kingdom. Icelanders demanded and got the resignation of their prime minister, whose wife had an off-shore account that was revealed by the Panama Papers.
British Prime Minister David Cameron released his income tax returns from the past seven years Sunday as he sought to quell controversy about his personal investments. Cameron tried to calm political waters regarding an offshore trust account set up by his late father, Ian Cameron, but the disclosure raised more questions. Protesters have been calling for his resignation.
When asked whether Selingers wife, Toupin, had any off-shore accounts or investments, a party spokesman said no and released her 2014 income summary as well. Toupin, whos now retired, was the prairie regional director for the Federal School of Public Service in 2014. Her income was $127,746 and her taxes owed were $31,311, the Canada Revenue Agency summary shows.
Selinger said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other world leaders have released information about their personal finances. He invited the other provincial party leaders to disclose their income tax returns as well.
As a proactive measure, I think were at a time where theres more demands for public transparency more of a request for people to be clear about what their personal circumstances are and whether it has any impact on their role in public office.
At a hastily called press conference Sunday afternoon, Liberal Leader Bokhari released her Canada Revenue Agency statement showing that in 2013, her earned income was $37,670. Her staff made copies of a portion of her Notice of Assessment available to reporters and said the information was the best they could come up with on short notice. Bokhari, who became Manitoba Liberal leader in 2013, urged Progressive Conservative Leader Brian Pallister to release his personal income information as well.
The premier did it and I have no issue doing it, said Bokhari. I just think all three leaders should do it.
The Progressive Conservatives were having nothing to do with the disclosure of Pallisters personal finances.
Greg Selingers last-minute election stunt is desperate, American-style politics from an old, tired government trying to divert voters attention from the real issues that matter to families, the PC party said in a press release. Mr. Selinger sat at his kitchen table knowing that he has taken over $5,000 in broken promise tax hikes from Manitobans kitchen tables since becoming premier. Tax hikes that hit average Manitobans in their wallets on everything from home insurance to cars to cottages.
Rather than disclosing Pallisters finances or saying whether he has any off-shore accounts, the provincial Tories said Selinger cant be trusted.
He says hes transparent but lied to Manitobans about not raising the PST, the PCs said. He says hes transparent but refuses to provide details of the $670,000 in special severance payments he approved to NDP staffers (and) refused to release documents to the ombudsman related to the Tiger Dam deal and his own ministers conflict of interest. Greg Selinger personifies broken trust, the statement said.
After the Progressive Conservatives declined Selingers challenge to reveal Pallisters 2014 income tax return, the NDP issued a statement asking why not.
This is a very simple question. Its an opportunity for Brian Pallister to live up to everything hes been saying about transparency. We cant guess why Pallister is so desperate to hide from such a simple and straightforward question.
carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
BAGHDAD (AP) U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry backed Iraqs prime minister on Friday in his efforts to resolve a mounting political crisis, underlining the importance of securing a unified and functioning government in the fight against the Islamic State. Kerry also pledged $155 million in new U.S. aid to Iraq.
Making an unannounced visit to Baghdad, his first in two years, Kerry held discussions with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi as well as with Iraqs foreign minister, the Sunni speaker of parliament and a Kurdish regional leader in what was designed as a show of support for the Iraqi government as it struggles with ongoing security, economic and political challenges. He described al-Abadis effort to reshuffle his cabinet as an internal matter, but said all sides in Iraq must put sectarian or personal interests aside for the sake of the nations future.
It is important to have stability, Kerry told reporters. And it is important to have a unified and functioning government as soon as possible, so that these operations are not affected.
Kerrys trip coincides with military advances. Iraqi forces say they entered the strategically important IS-held town of Hit on Thursday, while the Pentagon is considering establishing more small military outposts to provide artillery support and other aid to Iraqi forces readying an assault on Mosul, Islamic States stronghold in the country. Last month, the U.S. opened the first such base since returning to Iraq in 2014.
But al-Abadi faces challenges of his own. Al-Abadi proposed a new cabinet line-up amid mounting pressure from supporters of a hard-line Shiite cleric who last month staged rallies and a sit-in next to the government headquarters to demand reforms. But the move was quickly met with broad opposition, making it unlikely that al-Abadi will be able to obtain confirmations for the key political posts.
We dont play a role in that, Kerry said, trying to emphasize neutrality. But he also said he had no doubt that al-Abadi was extremely focused on making certain that there is a strong government in place and hailed the prime minister for demonstrating critical leadership in the face of enormous difficulties.
Such instability in Baghdad has already hampered al-Abadis ability to lead the fight against Islamic State. Last month, al-Abadi pulled Iraqi troops back from the front in western Anbar province to help maintain security in Baghdad amid mounting protests.
Iraqs entrenched corruption is at the heart of the internal debates, a problem compounded by the countrys weakened economic state as a result of crumbled oil prices.
Last August, al-Abadi proposed a reform package to combat corruption, cut government spending and merge ministries, but it has been stymied by sectarian tensions, the leaders own missteps and struggles to contain the Islamic State. IS forces swept across much of northern and western Iraq in the summer of 2014. While Iraqi authorities have waged a full-scale war, aided by U.S. airstrikes, the Kurdish peshmerga forces, Shiite militias and pro-government Sunni fighters, the extremist group still holds significant territory.
Kerry said the war is being won, albeit slowly.
IS has lost 40 percent of its territory in Iraq, Kerry said. Oil revenue is down by almost a third. Airstrikes on cash storage sites have cost the extremists millions of dollars, leading rank-and-file fighters to disobey orders, flee positions and hide among civilians as theyve watched their paychecks dwindle and the group lose its aura of invincibility.
The Islamic State territories in Iraq and Syria are still a magnet for foreign fighters, and cells are expanding around the world. And experts say Islamic States staying power may be inspiring others, whove never been in contact with the group, to wage violence in its name. Recent attacks in Brussels, Paris and California underscore Western fears.
Kerry said the Iraqi army is still shaping the operation. He offered no time frame for when the actual assault might begin, and he stressed that no additional American forces are being considered. There are 3,870 U.S. forces in Iraq currently, though the number fluctuates.
There was no request from Prime Minister Abadi for some new infusion of troops at this point in time, and nor did we discuss that, Kerry said.
The new U.S. aid will support Iraqis displaced within the country of forced to flee abroad as refugees. More than 3.4 million Iraqis have been uprooted in the last 2 years. American humanitarian assistance over that time now totals $778 million.
The school partnered with Capuchin Community Services and volunteered around Milwaukee. Students ate with clients at two different soup kitchens, sorted supplies at a shelter, learned about the lives of some homeless people and attended a Catholic Gospel Mass service. The goal was not only for students to learn more about poverty and homelessness within Milwaukee, but also be exposed to the positive and uplifting organizations and services within the city.
New York City, Madrid, San Bernardino, Paris, Brussels: Cities that have tasted the toxic bowl of wrath brewed, not by God, but by twisted souls conflating religion, politics and power.
The current bowls are poured out by those who are attempting to establish a modern caliphate, called the Islamic State in Syria or the Islamic State in the Levant. The Levant is the geographical designation for that area of the Middle East on the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, comprising Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Syria, and Jordan.
Many are calling this movement radical Islamic terrorism, which uses violence to create fear to subject others to their apocalyptic vision for world history. In conjunction with this, the word jihad is used as the call to arms, as it were, for this holy war. Because of this, Christians and most others have a very bad impression of this word and recoil at its use, feeling like it is literally being used against them as the enemy in the war. It is true that in the history of Islam the word jihad has been a call to arms at times to rally Muslims to either defend themselves, on the one hand, or, on the other hand, take up the sword for the sake of Islamic expansion and empire to convert the world for Allah. (Read Efraim Karshs Islamic Imperialism: A History.)
However, jihad means struggle and the greater jihad is the personal inner struggle of each believer to overcome ones ego and fully submit to the will of Allah for true inner peace. In this sense, the true enemy is ones self, not any other who may not be a believer. In fact, the Quran instructs, Fight in the cause of God against those who fight you, but do not transgress limits. God does not love transgressors (Surah 2:190); and again, If they seek peace, then seek you peace. And trust in God for he is the One that heareth and knoweth all things (Surah 8:61).
The Old Testament Hebrews had their own form of jihad, though they did not call it that. Given the overall political power vacuum that existed in the area at the time, an immigrant group of Hapiru was able to leave Egypt and enter into their Promised Land with religious zeal and with blood on their hands. The story of the fall of Jericho is the classic case in point (Joshua 6). Even today, this spirit of entitlement exists with deadly fervor among those who could be called messianic terrorists, killing to help bring in the messianic age for Jews. They are small in number, act infrequently, yet are just as deadly in their violence.
Of course, Christians hold no pure shining candle in the darkness of human wrong-headedness and wrong-heartedness. Eight crusades were mounted in the 11-13 centuries, led by popes, cardinals, monks and Christian emperors and kings.
On their way to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims, they even attacked and pillaged Christian cities, including Constantinople (Istanbul), seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church. All for power and wealth, guided by religious fanaticism.
Returning to Islam once again as a way of addressing any extremism in any religion, Mustafa Akyol makes a compelling case in his book Islam without Extremes for a freedom in society that rests on three pillars: Reason, pluralism and Godliness.
He concludes, Today, the historical experience shows that the politics-focused Islamists were wrong, and the faith-focused Muslims were right. The former only created violence, tension, authoritarianism, and hatred against Islam. The latter created modern schools, charities, soup kitchens, and sympathy for Islam.
One could substitute any religion in this quote for his reference to Islam and gain insight for moderation and acceptance over fundamentalism and intolerance.
Christians, Muslims and Jews today along with those of other faiths, steeped in the realities of modernity (building individuality on the ground of freedom, accepting pluralism within community, practicing democracy for governance, and respecting spirituality beyond the particularities of religious distinctions) can stand and work together to fend off any lasting effect of extremism on global stability and world order.
(Mark J. Molldrem is a writer, community volunteer and daily host of Joy in the Morning on WBEV. He lives in Beaver Dam with his wife, Shirley. WordPowerSolutions@gmail.com)
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Robert ONeill
By: Mahesh Sarin
(Scroll down for video) The Navy SEAL who revealed that he fired the shot that killed Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, police in Montana said.
Butte police said that they have arrested 39-year-old Robert ONeill, after being found sleeping at the wheel of his car.
ONeill was charged with one count of driving under the influence. He was booked into jail, and his bail was set at $685.
According to the police, customers of a convenience store called 911 to report ONeill, who was asleep at the wheel of the car on Friday around 2:30 a.m.
Officers who arrived at the scene, woke ONeill, and noticed that he was acting strange. He was confused, and his actions were consistent with someone who might be under the influence of alcohol.
ONeill denied that he was drinking, and said that he took sleeping pills. ONeill failed a sobriety test. The officers took him to jail, where he refused a test to determine the level of alcohol in his blood.
ONeill and a group of Navy SEALs, raided a compound in Afghanistan, where he shot and killed Osama Bin Laden, who was the mastermind behind the attacks in New York City on September 11, 2001.
Funding Secured For Well Known Accident Hotspot in Brymbo
This article is old - Published: Sunday, Apr 10th, 2016
A campaign to secure road safety investment at a well-known accident hotspot in Wrexham has been successful.
A total of 40,500 of accident reduction funding has been secured for the the B5101 along with a section of the Brymbo Link Road now known has Heritage Way.
The funding comes as a result of a successful bid to the Welsh Government.
It will be spent on improving signage in the area and surface treatments at various locations.
Last year Brymbo Councillor Paul Rogers successfully secured a reduction in the speed limit to 40mph following requests from concerned residents in Tanyfron.
A bid to include the Brymbo Link Road for the additional funding was made following a large number of accidents in late 2015.
The Council has since worked with North Wales Police to monitor speed in the area.
Commenting on the news Councillor Rogers said: I am delighted that following a significant amount of work by Wrexham Council officers they have secured this additional funding.
This funding is on top of recent investment to reduce the speed limit and additional road safety markings.
Road safety on the Link Road has been a priority for residents in Tanyfron and the surrounding areas for some time and I am delighted to have assisted secure this investment.
*Stock image of Brymbo
CAMILLA, Ga. (WTXL) - We're learning more details about the man investigators say shot and killed his wife after a nearly seven hour long standoff in Camilla on Friday.
49 year old Frederick Murray also known as Fre-low surrendered to the Georgia State Patrol SWAT team on Friday after shooting his wife, Willie Mae Wallace to death.
According to the Georgia Department of corrections website, Murray served time for arson and was released in 2012. Wallace's family says though they struggle with the circumstances of her death, she leaves behind a strong legacy.
Family members say Wallace faced domestic violence while married to Murray.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - The Silver Alert issued for 76 year old Kenneth Eugene Haughton, was canceled late Saturday night. Haughton was located at the home of a relative in Hillsborough County.
The relative notified the Hillsborough County Sheriff Office that Mr. Haughton had been found and Hillsborough County notified the Wakulla County Sheriffs Office.
Authorities say Mr. Haughton is in good health, and a relative is in the process of bringing him back to Wakulla County.
The Wakulla County Sheriffs Office appreciates the concern shown by the community after the alert was issued, said Sheriff Charlie Creel. Mr. Haughton has been located safe and in good health.
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WAKULLA CO., Fla. (WTXL) - Officials are asking the public to be on the look out for a missing Crawfordville man.
The Wakulla County Sheriff's Office says 76 year old Eugene Haughton was reported missing Saturday at 8 a-m. He was last seen wearing jeans, a plaid shirt and an FSU ball cap.
He's driving a 2012 Nissan Versa and may be headed to Cross City, Florida.
Haughton suffers from Alzheimer's disease. If you or anyone have seen him you're asked to call the Wakulla County Sheriff's Office at 850-745-7100.
A 19-year-old Yakima man on Sunday became the third person shot to death over the weekend in separate incidents in Yakima and Union Gap.
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The Shin Bet has opened a preliminary investigation into inciting posts made by Likud activists on social media showing Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon in the center of a bullseye and depicting him in Nazi uniforms.
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The investigation will examine all of the remarks made against Ya'alon, as well as the general public mood and incitement that security officials fear could bolster those seeking to harm the defense minister.
Ya'alon has been at the center of much contention in recent days in light of his comments backing IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot and many senior officials and officers in the defense establishment who came out against a Kfir Brigade soldier for shooting dead a terrorist who was already lying wounded on the ground.
Over the weekend, Ya'alon said both in private conversations and in a public post made on social media that he remains undeterred. "I will continue on my path, even if it costs me my political career," he said.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon (Photo: Shaul Golan)
"The good of the country is more important than my own, even at the cost of being threatened or of attempts to blacken my name and hurt me politically. I've been serving the country for 45 years, and this is a calling. So I'm fighting not just in uniform, but also in politics," he went on to say.
And after being targeted by some among the Likud party's activists, Ya'alon is now receiving backing from prominent party activists and members of the Likud center, who are collecting signatures on a letter of support in defense minister.
"We saw fit to write to you following a series of inciting comments made against you recently by some members in our movement," they wrote. "As members of a democratic movement, we believe in the right of the movement's members to conduct a discussion about remarks made by its elected representatives, and even criticize them. However, we are opposed to any attempt to terrorize a sitting minister, a member of the movement, just because his comments do not curry favor with some."
The letter went on to say that "the choice of some of those members (that it is possible the only targets they ever shot at, if at all, were made of cardboard) to draw a bullseye - while using the word 'assassination' - on the face of someone who dedicated most of his life to Israel's security - is worthy of condemnation."
Inciting photo calling to end Ya'alon's political career.
"We are rest assured that you are acting with integrity and faith to keep the IDF a professional and moral military," the letter's writers added. "Due to our belief that the realization of the Jewish people's right to rule over its homeland necessitates maintaining the purity of arms, we hope that you continue acting to ensure the security of the state and its residents, while defending the rule of law, under the principle of the 'Supremacy of the Law' instituted by the movement's founder Menachem Begin."
Dozens of Likud activists have already signed the letter, and it was distributed through social media and Likud WhatsApp groups where, in some places, other activists continued harshly criticizing Ya'alon.
Some of those activists said they had no intention of apologizing to Ya'alon and that he was the one who should apologize to them. These activists also attacked Ya'alon's statement that "The IDF chief, and not gang leaders, will determine the rules of engagement."
"Why did the defense minister decide that those who support the soldier are part of a gang?" one activist wrote. "I'm not part of a gang, and I came to the soldier's defense because of the immediate and unbridled attacks against him by Bogie (Ya'alon) and the other politicians."
Hamad Al-Sharifi, who previously served as an Iraqi diplomat in Kuwait and Jordan, will arrive in Israel on Sunday, even though the two countries do not have diplomatic relations.
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For much of his career, Al-Sharifi has worked as a diplomat on behalf of Iraq's Baghdad government and will arrive in Israel as a guest of the Foreign Ministry. During his visit, he will break many barriers between Israel and Arab states. Al-Sharifi will meet with Israelis of Iraqi descent, members of Knesset, and religious leaders from the three Abrahamic faiths. He will also tour the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, the Knesset, the Supreme Court, Yad VaShem, and many other places.
"I would like to thank Hassan Kaabiah, deputy spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry, who convinced me to visit to see the true Israel, which we have not seen on anti-Israeli television. One day, I hope that I will be the Iraqi ambassador to Israel and that Hassan will be the Israeli ambassador to Iraq," said Al-Sharifi before his visit. He added, "I consider myself a friend of Israel. At this time, Arabs need to understand that there is no conflict between Israel and Arab states, rather there is an Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I hope that it will end and peace will reign."
Hasan Kaabiah, deputy spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry
Al-Sharifi, 55, is originally from Baghdad and was born to Shitte parents. In the past decade, he served as an Iraqi diplomat in many different posts including a role as the official representative of the Iraqi embassy in Kuwait from 2005-2006.
He also served as a political advisor and deputy chief of mission for the Iraqi embassy in Jordan in 2006. Additionally, Al-Sharifi has served an advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense.
Even before the Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein assumed power in 1979, Al-Sharifi was in exile. During Hussein's rule, he succeeded in evading the long reach of the Iraqi intelligence and according to reports, survived a few assassination attempts.
Today he works as a researcher in London. Al-Sharifi also chairs an organization called "The Liberal Muslims" and writes modern exegesis of the Quran. His research focuses on developing and reforming Islamic jurisprudence. He also publishes articles on different topics including political and religious reform and other issues related to Israel.
Yonatan Gonen, the head of the Arabic language digital diplomacy at the Foreign Ministry, said in a telephone conversation with Ynet, "The arrival of the former Iraqi diplomat demonstrates that there are no limits in today's world. We receive many messages from Iraqis, expressing their support for Israel and their longing for the Jewish community. We are holding a dialogue with many Iraqis through social media and the general feeling is of affection, understanding, and even rapprochement between the two peoples. (Though) it is clear that that not everything is rosy and many curse Israel and call on Jews to return from the 'Satanic Israel to the land of the Tigris and Euphrates."
The Israeli government approved on Sunday a multi-year plan to improve law enforcement in the Arab sector and in Jerusalem.
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The plan, which seeks to gradually reduce the high crime rates in the Arab sector, is expected to cost several billions of shekels and be implemented starting this year and until 2020.
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, who initiated the plan, says it aims to narrow social gaps between Jews and Arabs in Israel, as well as economically integrate the Arab population in the Israeli society. This, the minister says, will also help increase the personal security of residents in Jerusalem and the entire Arab sector.
Erdan said the decision was "no less than a historic one."
Border Police officers at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem (Photo: AFP)
"We want equality in law enforcement," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"This equality does not exist in Jerusalem and the Arab public is paying dearly. The State of Israel is paying dearly. We want a single nation of law without enclaves in which the law is not upheld. We also want to reduce other gaps in society at large and in Israeli Arab society. We want to integrate them in all walks of life in the country and this is what we will do. The step that we are taking today will reduce the gaps in law enforcement and increase personal security."
The plan will include the construction of 10 new police stations in Arab or mixed cities, and the renovation of 10 existing police stations in Nazareth, Misgav, Shfar'am, Karmiel, Migdal HaEmek, Umm al-Fahm, Tayibe, Tira (Kedma), Kafr Qasim and Rahat.
Erdan said the construction of new stations and renovation of existing ones will be prioritized according to the level of crime in the community. "So we'll first provide an answer to communities that have the highest level of crime, in order to improve law enforcement there and increase the personal security of the residents," he said.
In addition, 2,600 new police officer positions will be added at the cost of NIS 2 billion to Arab and mixed cities.
The plan will be implemented in several stages. In the first stage, taking place in 2016, 500 new officers will be added to the force at the cost of NIS 100 million, with funding taken from the Interior Ministry. The rest of the necessary financing, up to NIS 100 million, will be allocated as a one-time payment from the Finance Ministry.
For 2017, the government will seek funding for 200 of the 500 officer positions in the new state budget, but if the appropriate funding cannot be secured in the budget these positions, police will cut back on recruitment of new officers in 2017 to allow for these positions.
The second stage of the plan, which includes the building of new police stations and the renovating of existing ones will require approval and the allocation of resources.
The plan also includes a renewed deployment of forces in Jerusalem and "significantly strengthening the enforcement and deterrence in Jerusalem, and the ability to provide enforcement services to all parts of the city, including East Jerusalem," Erdan said.
Herzl Shaul, the father of Oron Shaul, and suffering from cancer, called on the Israeli government to expedite the return of his son's remains in order to bury them in Israel.
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First sergeant Oron Shaul was killed in an armored personnel carrier incident in Shujaiya on July 20, 2014 in which six other Golani soldiers were killed. Hamas announced that it had captured Oron, but the IDF determined that Oron had passed away. The Shaul family eventually accepted the IDF's narrative and sat shiva (Jewish week-long mourning period) for their son.
Herzl Shaul with his son, First Seargent Oron Shaul, killed during Operation Protective Edge (Photo: Family picture)
Approximately six months ago, Herzl said that he was suffering from chest pains and underwent a number of medical examinations, which revealed that he has cancer. His wife also previously had cancer, but now is under medical surveillance.
According to Herzl, the stress and concern for the fate of his son, who has not been able to bury until this day, has contributed to the deterioration of his health. "I wake up every morning and I feel that they are not doing enough to bring back Oron's body," he said.
Herzl also commented on his wife's perspective that they sat shiva in vain and Shaul is still living: "Zahava, my wife, believes that he is still living because a mother is mother. It is very difficult for her to accept the painful fact." He added, "However, from the evidence they (IDF) presented us, I have no doubt he has passed away and we must return his and Hadar Goldin's bodies."
Herzl believes the bodies will be returned, but thinks it will take time. A meeting between Oron's parents and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was supposed to take place Monday but it was put off due to the Shaul's medical problems. Oron's family intend to wage a public fight to have their son's remains returned.
All the stops were pulled out for Saudi King Salman during his visit to Egypt. Egyptian President Sisi met the king at the airport with a red carpet, military orchestra, hugs, smiles, and media all around. "Welcome to the historic visit of your second home" the Egyptian President announced as he escorted the Saudi royal through five days of events.
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King Salman was immediately awarded the Nile Prize, Egypt's highest honor, made of pure gold and embedded with three squares the first which represents the water which protects Egypt, the second which represents the water which ensures Egypt's wellbeing, and the third which represents the water which brings happiness to the Egyptian people.
Few others have been awarded this medal: Writer and Nobel Prize winner Najib Mahfouz, South African leader Nelson Mandela, Anwar Sadat, Queen Elizabeth of Britian, and Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Busaidi of Oman, the only Arab leader who supported Egypt when it signed the peace treaty with Israel.
Relations between Cairo and Riyadh have been rocky since President Mubarak's overthrow five years ago. The Saudi government offered Mubarak political asylum in order to save him from arrest and trial, but he refused, resulting in a trial which continues even to this day.
After he ousted the Muslim Brotherhood from power, Sisi received a financial lifeline worth billions which enabled him to solidify his powerbase. It was very important for Saudi Arabia to protect its ally. Nevertheless, the differences of opinion between the two sides didn't disappear with Saudi Arabia pressuring Bashar al-Assad to leave his post in Damascus, and with Egypt quarreling with Erdogan in Turkey. When Saudi Arabia announced an Arab coalition against Iran, Sisi announced that he would support it, but that he wouldn't send any military forces.
: Christo & Jean Claude
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The visit comes as Cairo is in a position of weakness. Advisors are advising Obama to reconsider US relations with Egypt due to Egypt's continued violations of human rights and their "lack of determination" in establishing democracy. Russia distanced itself from Egypt following the bombing of the Russian passenger plane in Sinai by ISIS . Italy Egypt's largest trade partner in the EU and third largest trade partner overall has recalled its ambassador over the murder of an Italian student.
Salman arrived with a huge entourage of family members in order to try and save Egypt from its difficult situation, signed 17 cooperation agreements with the Egyptians, and pledged three to four million dollars for projects in the Sinai. The ambitious projects include increasing agriculture in the desert, building factories, and establishing the first university on the peninsula. Egypt was made to promise that terror organizations won't interfere with these projects.
But the highlight of the visit came when the Saudi King announced revisiting an initiative to build a bridge between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which will be the first ever man-made connection between Asia and Africa.
It's no wonder that exact location of the bridge was kept a secret; an unknown place close to Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt and somewhere in Tabuk Province in Saudi Arabia. The bridge will be 15 kilometers long, take 20 minutes to cross, and will enable millions of African pilgrims to make the holy Hajj journey to Mecca. It will help enable oil to be transported from Saudi Arabia to Egypt more efficiently, and it will facilitate trade and tariffs for both sides.
Saudi King Salman greeted by Egyptian President Sisi in Cairo (Photo: Reuters)
During the reign of the last Saudi king, Israel worried that a bridge connecting the two countries would enable Egyptian and Gulf forces to transfer weapons and military forces, and was able to stop the construction of the bridge. Israel was able to convince Mubarak that it was a bad idea because it would hurt tourism to Sinai.
However, it was recently exposed that tourism in the Sinai is indeed suffering, with empty hotels and beaches commonplace throughout the peninsula. Egypt and Saudi Arabia will only benefit from the bridge. Meanwhile, Israel has been silent. Was Israel let in on the secret plans for the bridge? Does this point to under the table dealings with the Saudis? Is Israel thinking of the potential danger this bridge could present?
In the end, one can assume that the leadership in Jerusalem is praying that the big plans stay on paper.
TEHRAN- Iran's judiciary spokesman has raised the possibility of a prisoner exchange involving two US-Iranian citizens and an Iranian consultant to the UN arrested in the United States.
The semi-official ISNA news agency quoted Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi as saying Sunday that he has "heard words from here and there though nothing has been officially conveyed to the judiciary."
Ejehi was asked about a possible exchange involving Siamak Namazi, jailed in Iran for "cooperation with the hostile government of the United States." His father, Baquer, is jailed on unannounced charges.
The IDF prosecutor's office decided on Sunday to close the investigation into the actions of the head of the Binyamin division, Colonel Israel Shomer, who shot and killed a Palestinian who threw a boulder at his car.
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On July 3, 2015 a Palestinian from Qalandia threw a boulder at the Colonel's windshield. It went through the windshield and entered the car. In response, Colonel Shomer got out of his car and initiated the proper use of rules of engagement.
However, the investigation revealed that Shomer shot at the Palestinian while he was in motion, and not from a static firing position. Therefore, his shots weren't precise, and he ended up killing the Palestinian.
Col. Israel Shomer and his damaged car (Photo: IDF Spokespersons Unit)
The Chief IDF Prosecutor determined that the Colonel's shooting under the rules of engagement was justified, as their intended use was to arrest the Palestinian. The prosecution also found that although firing while moving and not from a static position was a professional error, the extenuating circumstances behind the event are what caused this transgression.
Therefore, "the shooting incident did not cross the line into criminal activity, and therefore does not necessitate legal action against the officer."
Only part of the incident was captured on security camera footage, and the shots which killed the Palestinian weren't captured on film. According to Judea and Samaria Division Command, live fire may only be used if the soldier's life is in danger.
WASHINGTON- A handful of Bernie Sanders supporters are protesting Hillary Clinton in Baltimore on Sunday.
The small group held up a sign reading: "Clinton: What about mass incarceration" and chanted "super predator." As they were escorted out of the campaign rally by police, the activists chanted "Feel The Bern."
Both Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, have been repeatedly protested for their support for the 1994 crime bill -- a signature achievement of her husband's administration. On Friday, Bill Clinton offered a near apology for a contentious confrontation with some protesters at a Philadelphia campaign rally.
They've both said they regret the bill because it contributed to high incarceration rates of black people for nonviolent crimes, like minor drug offenses. Sanders, then a congressman, also backed the legislation.
Washington: With Zika virus reaching epidemic levels throughout South and Central America, southern Mexico and the Caribbean, a team of innovators has taken some old tires and turned them into a potential weapon against the deadly disease.
With Canadian Government funding, the team from Canada and Mexico successfully tested the low cost, environmentally-friendly way of destroying the eggs of the mosquito genus that spreads dengue and likely spreading the Zika virus.
The study, conducted in a remote, urban area of Guatemala, documents a cheap, easy system to reduce virus-carrying Aedesgenus mosquitoes by capturing and destroying its eggs.
The system includes an innovative Canadian-designed trap called an "ovillanta," created from two 50 cm sections of an old car tire, fashioned into a mouth-like shape, with a fluid release valve at the bottom.
Inside the lower tire cavity, a milk-based, non-toxic solution developed at Sudbury's Laurentian University lures mosquitoes. Inserted to float in the artificial pond is a wooden or paper strip on which the female insect lays her eggs. The strip is removed twice weekly, analyzed for monitoring purposes, and the eggs destroyed using fire or ethanol.
The solution, which now includes mosquito pheromone, the female insect's chemical perfume that helps others identify a safe breeding site, is then drained, filtered and recycled back into the tire. The pheromone concentrates over time, making the ovillanta even more attractive for mosquitoes.
Researchers found the rubber ovillanta significantly more effective at attracting the Aedes mosquito than standard traps made from 1-litre buckets.
During the 10-month study, the team collected and destroyed over 18,100 Aedes eggs per month using 84 ovillantas in seven neighbourhoods of the town of Sayaxche (population 15,000), almost seven times the roughly 2,700 eggs collected monthly using 84 standard traps in the same study areas.
Targeting mosquito eggs using the ovillanta, researcher Gerardo Ulibarri of Laurentian University says, is one third as expensive as trying to destroy larvae in natural ponds and only 20 percent the cost of targeting adult insects with pesticides, which also harm bats, dragonflies and the mosquitoes' other natural predators.
Canada's Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau said, "Innovation is a key driver underlying the Government of Canada's approach to international development. Innovative solutions that deliver improved global health outcomes, such as for the fight against the Zika virus, are needed."
The results appear in the journal F1000Research.
Lakhanpur: In a major development, around 150 youths, who left Delhi for NIT Srinagar with Tricolors, have been detained by police in Lakhanpur of Jammu and Kashmir.
The detention of the youths took place on Saturday night.
Earlier, around 150 students on Saturday had embarked on their journey from Delhi to Srinagar to show solidarity with the non-Kashmiri students at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Jammu and Kashmir, following the unrest at the institute.
Holding the national flags, the youths led by Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena's head Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga commenced the protest march in the morning from Rakabganj Gurudwara here to reach NIT Srinagar.
Bagga, in a press statement said, two buses and seven cars have been arranged for the youths participating in "Chalo NIT" rally. They will reach Srinagar on Sunday.
"Seeing the tense situation in Jammu and Kashmir, we will hand over national flag and show that it is not a crime to hoist the Tricolour in the state. We want to show our support to the non-local NIT students who stood up for the nation and were brutally bashed up by the locals and the police," Bagga said in the statement.
Kollam: At least 102 people are feared dead and over 280 injured after firecrackers caused a massive fire at the Puttingal temple in the coastal town of Paravur located about 60 kms from the state capital, early on Sunday. The gruesome incident occurred around 3:30 am on Sunday.
Eyewitnesses said that the fireworks display started close to midnight and when nearing its close, a spark from a cracker landed in a building that had stored some high potency crackers and it caught fire causing a massive explosion. Following this, the building collapsed and that was the prime reason for the number of casualties to increase.
Events as they unfolded:
- PM thanked PM Sharif, and also expressed his deep condolences to him on loss of life and damage due to quake in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa: MEA.
- Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif calls up PM Narendra Modi to offer condolences over the Kerala fire tragedy.
- If and when needed, we're ready to transfer patients to AIIMS or Mumbai,whenever and wherever required: JP Nadda
- 50 cartons of medicines have been supplied, we're in constant coordination with the state govt and are giving whatever help needed: JP Nadda
- PM Modi has asked for a detailed report on how the accident took place. State administration will submit a report: Union Minister JP Nadda
- Russian President Putin conveys condolences over Kollam temple fire tragedy.
- This is a tragedy for Kerala and the whole country: Rahul Gandhi.
- I visited the site and the hospital today, my sympathies are with the kin of the deceased persons. I have told CM that Government of India will help if patients need to be shifted to Mumbai or Delhi. Government of India stands with the people of Kerala, we will help them in the best way possible, says PM Modi.
- Kerala temple tragedy shocking, painful: Mohan Bhagwat.
- INS Kabra and INS Kalpeni carrying medical supplies dock at the Kollam harbour.
- Keral CM orders judicial probe in Kollam fire tragedy.
- PM Modi, Kerala CM Oommen Chandy meet victims at AA Rahim Memorial Hospital.
- Congress VP Rahul Gandhi reaches Kollam.
- Indian Coast Guard (ICG) personnels donate blood at Trivandrum Medical Hospital for victims.
- PM Modi reaches the accident site in Kollam
- PM Modi reaches Kollam to visit the accident site
-We're happy that they are coming to Kerala to share our grief: Oommen Chandy on PM Modi's visit to Kollam
- PM Narendra Modi boards IAF chopper in Thiruvananthapuram, departs for Kollam
- Thiruvananthapuram: PM Modi received upon arrival by Governor of Kerala P Sathasivam
- PM Narendra Modi reaches Thiruvananthapuram
PM has directed that no protocol formalities be observed on his arrival in Kerala & focus remains on relief & rescue operations in Kollam. PMO India (@PMOIndia) April 10, 2016
A team of doctors including burn specialists will accompany PM @narendramodi to Kerala. PMO India (@PMOIndia) April 10, 2016
- ICG Ship C-427 loaded with medical team arrives in Kerala's Kollam
-Fire was contained to only one room, reason can only be ascertained after investigation: Sanjay Tomar, Fire Officer
- Pakistan on Sunday expressed its condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in a massive fire at the Puttingal temple in India's southern Kerala state in the wee hours on Sunday; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement condoled the incident.
- This is a big tragedy, I talked to Kerala CM as soon as I received the news: Rajnath Singh
- Centre has already offered medical assistance, but at present we are fully equipped: Oommen Chandy
- Meeting state cabinet today, we will discuss and then take a decision:Oommen Chandy on being asked if judicial probe will be ordered
- An additional team of Indian Coast Guard is on its way to Kollam to donate blood
- The issue of ordering a judicial probe into the tragedy will be discussed in the cabinet meeting today, Centre has offered for medical assistance but we are fully equipped: Chandy
- Kerala CM Oommen Chandy visits Puttingal temple.
"Sufficient medical facilities are available here, we are giving best medical care to all injured persons," says Chandy after visiting the site.
- Expressing deep shock and grief at the tragic incident, Congress president Sonia Gandhi asked the government to ensure ample and immediate relief measures. Sonia Gandhi, issuing a statement, also prayed for the departed souls and well being of the injured.
- BJP President Amit Shah visits Trivandrum Medical College where injured persons are being given medical assistance
- Unexploded explosives found at the site of Puttingal temple fire.
- 4 IAF helicopters have reached Trivandrum and are ready for the task. 2 AN32 aircrafts will take two NDRF teams from Arakkonam.
-Kerala government has decided to order a judicial a probe into the incident. Anyone found guilty in the tragedy will not be spared: Congress
- 102 persons confirmed dead in Kollam temple fire mishap; at least 280 injured.
- PM Modi leaves for Kerala with a group of doctors.
- A group of 15 doctors from AIIMS, RML hospital and Safdarjung hospital in Delhi leaves for Kerala with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
- Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to visit Kollam today
- INS Kabra and INS Kalpeni with medical stores being sailed to Kollam (Kerala) shortly, INS Sunayna also being sailed a little while later.
- One additional Dornier and two Chetaks also being pressed in for Kollam by the Navy.
- Death toll rises to 96 says Kerala DGP
- Media reports say that fireworks carried out despite denial of permission by the district authorities.
- Case registered against temple authorities and explosive licensees.
- PM Modi has asks for mobilization of Air Force and Navy assets in the area to assist in rescue and relief. PM has instructed that no official welcome protocols should be followed on his arrival. A team of burn specialist doctors also traveling with PM Modi to Kerala, PM will land directly in Kollam.
- Indian Navy joins in rescue ops,1 dornier and 2 ALHs with medical teams, dispatched from Garuda Naval Air station near Kochi.
- Kerala Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala reaches Puttingal temple in Kollam
- Kerala CM Oommen Chandy convenes an urgent cabinet meeting at 3 pm in Kollam.
- PM Modi to leave for Kerala shortly. He will meet CM Oommen Chandy, will also visit people who got injured in the tragedy.
- PM Modi announces Rs 2 lakh ex-gratia to the kin of deceased and Rs 50000 to critically injured.
- BJP President Amit Shah cancels all his public programs scheduled in Kerala today, will visit Kollam later in the day
- Police, disaster management teams and fire brigade are on the spot for rescue and relief work.
- Rescue operations by Air Force underway. Four helicopters including Mi-17 & ALH from Sulur (Coimbatore) being used.
- The number of injured persons crosses 350.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit Kerala to take stock of the situation.
- Death toll mounts to 83
- Fire at temple in Kollam is heart-rending & shocking beyond words. My thoughts are with families of the deceased & prayers with the injured: PM Modi.
"Spoke to CM Oommen Chandy about the fire at a temple in Kollam. Arranging for immediate shifting of those critically injured via helicopter. Have also asked my Cabinet colleague & Health Minister @JPNadda to immediately reach the site of the fire tragedy in Kollam," tweeted PM Modi.
WATCH: Moment when fire broke at Puttingal temple fire in Kollam (Kerala) due to fireworks display, 75 dead.https://t.co/xXtBnZkgWX &; ANI (@ANI_news) April 10, 2016
- We're giving all possible support to the injured people. District Collector, Kollam is convening a meeting of police officers after that we'll decide on post-mortem & other things, says Kerala Health Minister VS Sivakumar.
Patna: Senior BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha is "happy" that his "friend and brother" Nitish Kumar has become the new JD(U) president.
"I am very happy to hear the elevation of Nitish Kumar as president of JD(U)," Sinha told PTI while commenting at the political development in JD(U).
"Nitish Kumar has gained popularity through his progressive policies. I see great hope in him becoming a national here," Sinha, the second consecutive term BJP Lok Sabha member from Patna Sahib, said.
"His elevation is timely and will have a positive impact on national politics," Sinha popularly known as 'Bihari Babu', said in praise of the Bihar Chief Minister.
The senior BJP leader said his appreciation of Kumar was out of him being a son of the soil.
"Elevation of Nitish Kumar as president is an internal matter of the JD(U)," the BJP MP also said.
Upset at being ignored in the Bihar Assembly polls, Sinha had embarrassed the BJP during the polls by warmly meeting Nitish Kumar and RJD president Lalu Prasad, though on several occasions he had said it was personal and not political.
Sinha's biography "Anything but Khamosh" was launched in Patna by Nitish Kumar. Lalu Prasad also graced the function, but no BJP leader was spotted at the venue.
Nitish Kumar has also on numerous times praised Sinha by calling him the "pride of Bihar."
Kolkata: Once unknown beyond their immediate circles of family, friends and colleagues, they became crusaders due to difficulties and sorrow they experienced at a personal level. They all are now busy plotting the downfall of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who in the very first place is "responsible" for their 'celebrity' status.
Among these fighters working against the Trinamool Congress chief and her party in the West Bengal assembly elections is a Jadhavpur University professor, a widow of a green activist, two housewives, and a farmer.
Dubbed as Maoists or arrested for circulating an innocuous spoof, they all faced Banerjee's wrath at one or the other point of time. Now, they say, they are fighting to "reclaim democracy snatched away by the despotic Trinamool regime".
Ambikesh Mahapatra was leading a normal life as a chemistry professor at the Jadavpur University till April 12, 2012, when his arrest for circulating a spoof on the chief minister made him a household name in West Bengal and elsewhere.
Contesting as an Independent, he is taking on city mayor and Trinamool heavyweight Sovan Chatterjee from Behala East.
Mahapatra openly admits he owes his popularity to Banerjee.
"It is a fact that people know me in India and even abroad because of Mamata. But this popularity is as much an advertisement of the despotic and tyrannical regime that has robbed the entire state of democracy," Mahapatra told IANS.
"It's neither a personal fight nor a move to seek revenge, but to give voice to many people like me who suffered or continue to do so at the hands of this government," says Mahapatra.
He has formed 'Aakranta Aamraa' (We the Victims), a forum of alleged victims of human rights violations and atrocities under Banerjee rule.
Undeterred by his strong adversary Chatterjee, who won the seat in 2011 by a wide margin, Mahapatra has been extensively using the social media to circulate spoofs and jokes revolving around a Narada TV sting operation allegedly showing several Trinamool leaders, including the mayor, taking bribes.
"It's a shame that the mayor's post, once occupied by luminaries like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, now has somebody who has no qualms in taking bundles of cash as bribe," says Mahapatra.
Besides Mahapatra, the forum has fielded Pratima Dutta, wife of murdered green activist Tapan Dutta, from Domjur in Howrah district.
Lending them support is Shiladitya Chowdhury, a farmer branded as a Maoist and thrown into jail for daring to question Banerjee in public about the rising fertiliser prices.
Till then a nondescript famer from Binpur in West Midnapore, people saw on their TV sets police dragging away Chowdhury after Mamata ordered "Oke dhorun... ekkhuni dhorun (catch him... catch him at once)" during a public meet in 2012.
With the case still pending against him, Chowdhury has been going around both Behala and Domjur constituencies, telling people about his miseries and urging them not to vote for the Trinamool.
"My life has been ruined; it's been four years and I still have to do the rounds of court. And I'm not alone. There are many others languishing in jails on false charges just because they opposed the Trinamool in some way or the other."
"The entire state should teach her a lesson by not casting even a single vote for Trinamool which is nothing but a symbol of torture and tyranny," Chowdhury told IANS.
Jammu: Around 150 youth who were on their way to Srinagar to express solidarity with the non-local students at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) were detained at Lakhanpur and not allowed to enter Jammu and Kashmir.
"Around 150 youth from Delhi, Punjab and Harayana who were on their way to Srinagar to join the NIT protest were not allowed to enter Jammu and Kashmir and were detained at Lakhanpur late last night from where they were sent back," a senior police officer said.
"Fearing the law and order problem, around 150 youth who tried to enter Jammu and Kashmir on a bus and a Tata Sumo were not allowed to enter the state and were sent back," the officer said.
Led by Tejinder Pal Singh Bagga of Bhagat Singh Kranti Dal the youth returned to New Delhi from Lakhanpur after police did not allow them to proceed towards the state. ??? The youth were on their way to Srinagar for unfurling national tri colour at NIT to express their solidarity with non-local students there.
The youth comprising students of IT, engineering, architect and other courses had begun their journey under the banner of newly formed "Group of Citizens" from Delhi's Gurdwara Rakabgunj yesterday.
They were first stopped at Madhopur in Punjab, but were later allowed to proceed to Jammu and Kashmir after questioning by Punjab Police.
As they crossed the bridge over Ravi, they started raising slogans like "Bharat Mata ki Jai" but were, however, stopped by the police.
"We were going to Srinagar to tell non-local students at NIT-Srinagar that they are not alone in their fight against anti-nationals," Bagga said.
Clashes occurred at NIT, Srinagar following team India's defeat against West Indies in the World Cup T20 semi-final.
Two group of students, one from Kashmir and another from other states, fought after some students burst crackers after India's defeat, leading the shut down of the institute.
Kollam: In one of the worst tragedies to hit Kerala, at least 106 people were killed and 383 injured in a devastating fire that engulfed the 100-year-old Puttingal Devi Temple complex near here on Sunday.
A late night statement issued by the Chief Minister's office said 106 people had lost their lives in the incident that left 383 others with injuries.
A judicial probe by a retired High Court Judge was ordered by the state government along with an investigation by Crime Branch into the tragedy, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy announced after an emergency Cabinet meeting over the tragedy.
The tragedy struck around 3.30 AM during display of fireworks at the temple complex, which is around 70 kms from the state capital Thiruvananthapuram.
The fireworks, for which no permission had been granted by Revenue and police officials, had started at midnight as part of an annual festival and thousands of people had gathered to witness it.
The mishap occurred as sparks of the fireworks fell on the store room 'Kambapura' and the fire crackers kept there exploded with a deafening noise, police said.
The blaze spread quickly trapping the devotees within the complex. Charred bodies and human remains were strewn around the temple complex after the fire tragedy. "It was complete chaos," eyewitnesses said.
The explosions also ripped chunks of concrete and plaster from the temple and nearby buildings which fell on people killing some on the spot and wounding many others.
PM Modi pledges all help after visiting temple fire site
Meanwhile, describing the fire tragedy as "unimaginable", Prime Minister Narendra Modi today assured Kerala government and its people all help in the hour of crisis as he visited the mishap site near here and a hospital to see the injured people.
"The tragedy is unimaginable and dreadful," a sombre PM Modi said in Thiruvananthapuram just before taking a flight to Delhi.
"This is an hour of crisis and the central government is ready to extend all help to Kerala government and the people of the state," PM Modi added.
He said he had told the Chief Minister that if he wanted any injured people to be taken to Mumbai or Delhi for specialised treatment, the central government will immediately make arrangements for the same.
He announced Rs.2 lakh as compensation to families of each of the dead.
CM Chandy orders judicial probe
On the other hand, CM Chandy announced a compensation of Rs.10 lakh to families of the dead, Rs.2 lakh each to the seriously injured and Rs.50,000 to those with minor injuries.
He also ordered a judicial probe and a simultaneous investigation by the Crime Branch of Kerala Police to determine how the fireworks show ended up raining death.
At the same time, Chandy held an emergency cabinet meeting in Kollam and said that the incident "should open the eyes of all of us" vis-a-vis temple celebrations, as per IANS.
He added that the government would bear the expenses of the injured.
One booked for violating licence norms
One person, who had allegedly stored crackers and fireworks ten times more than the permit, was booked by police in connection with the Puttingal Devi Temple fire tragedy.
Attingal police said they have registered a case against the licensee, Surendran, who had stored about 150 kgs of crackers and fireworks material at the storehouse without valid permission.
Surendran had license to store only about 15 kg, police said.
"It is a clear violation of license. So far no arrests have been made," police said, as per PTI.
Army, Air force, Navy pitch in with aid
As tragedy struck, a massive effort was launched to rescue the people from the inferno and shift the injured people to hospitals, with the Navy and the Air Force pressing into service six helicopters and one Dornier aircraft.
Following a request from the state government, Indian Air Force sent six helicopters, two AN32 transport aircraft and two business jets to Kerala, a spokesperson said.
The Navy dispatched six aircraft - two Dornier fixed- wing aircraft, two ALH helicopters and two Chetak helicopters - to the site of the tragedy, a navy spokesperson said.
And INS Sunayna, Kabra and Kalpeni set sail immediately from Kochi with 200kg of medical supplies and a medical team.
However, the 15-member temple committee, which was in the precincts, when the mishap occurred, went missing soon after the incident, local people said.
(With Agency inputs)
Kollam: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday that Centre was fully with Kerala government and its people in the wake a major fire that engulfed the 100-year-old Puttingal Devi Temple complex near here.
"Centre fully stands by Kerala government and its people in this hour of crisis," PM Modi said after visiting Temple fire site and hospital, adding, "I have told CM that Government of India will help if patients need to be shifted to Mumbai or Delhi."
"I visited Kollam and the hospital today, my sympathies are with the kin of the deceased persons. Difficult to express the painful accident in Puttingal, people at a distance of 200 metres got injured," he added.
In one of the worst tragedies to hit Kerala, more than 100 people were killed in the fire during a display of fireworks, for which no permission had been granted by the authorities.
A judicial probe by a retired High Court Judge was ordered by the state government along with an investigation by Crime Branch into the tragedy, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy announced after an emergency Cabinet meeting over the tragedy.
Chandy also announced ex-gratia relief of Rs 10 lakh to kin of each of those killed in fire tragedy, Rs 2 lakh for seriously injured and Rs 50,000 for those with minor injuries.
PM Modi announced Rs two lakh each as compensation for the next of the kin of the dead and Rs 50,000 each for the injured.
The PM arrived in Kerala today to take stock of the situation and first went to Thiruvananthapuram from where he came here by a navy helicopter.
At Thiruvananthapuram airport, he was received by Governor Justice (Rtd) P Sathasivam and state BJP leaders, including O Rajagopal who gave him the latest update on the mishap.
PM Modi later flew into Kollam where he was received by Chief Minister Oomen Chandy and several MPs.
Immediately after reaching here, he went to medical college to see the injured people.
PM @narendramodi at the site of the tragedy in Kollam with CM Oommen Chandy & other officials. pic.twitter.com/mXs8DwI2Xx PMO India (@PMOIndia) April 10, 2016
PM @narendramodi meeting CM Oommen Chandy & local administration officials. Health Minister @JPNadda is also present pic.twitter.com/wmU3Gzny4L PMO India (@PMOIndia) April 10, 2016
The Prime Minister at Trivandrum Medical College. pic.twitter.com/5vDgyEBtpr PMO India (@PMOIndia) April 10, 2016
(With PTI inputs)
Kollam: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday visited the site of the deadly inferno at the Puttingal temple in Kerala`s Kollam district where at least 105 people were killed in the fire.
Accompanied by Congress leader AK Antony and Kerala Home Minister, Ramesh Chennithala, Rahul proceeded to the AA Rahim Memorial Hospital to meet those who had been injured in the tragedy.
The official Twitter handle of the Indian National Congress posted some pictures of Rahul from the accident site:
Rahul Gandhi at the Puttingal temple fire tragedy site in Kollam pic.twitter.com/ZIKfHKvbDh INC India (@INCIndia) April 10, 2016
The Congress vice president also met those injured in the Kollam temple fire tragedy at the AA Rahim Memorial Hospital.
Rahul Gandhi meeting the injured at the AA Rahim Memorial Hospital, Kollam pic.twitter.com/LtqaqNqq5y INC India (@INCIndia) April 10, 2016
"My prayers are with families of those who've lost loved ones in this terrible tragedy," said Gandhi after meeting the victims.
"This is a tragedy for Kerala and the whole country," he added.
Earlier today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also arrived in Kollam and took stock of the entire situation.
He was accompanied by Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Union Health Minister JP Nadda, as he visited the site of the incident and met the victims in the hospital.
A team of 15 burn specialist doctors from All India Institute of Medical Science and other hospitals from Delhi accompanied the Prime Minister to Kollam. He also visited the Naval relief facility set up at Kollam and the ships providing support to medical teams and undertaking blood donation.
Meanwhile, the Kerala Government has announced a judicial inquiry to be headed by retired high court justice Krishnan Nair into the incident.Chandy told ANI in an exclusive conversation after emerging out of the Cabinet meeting that the inquiry committee would submit its report within six months.
"We have announced an ex relief of Rs 10 lakhs to next of kin of the people, who have died in the accident and free treatment to all the injured. Apart from that, serious injured will get Rs. two lakhs and Rs 50,000 will be given to minor injured people," said Chandy.
Elaborating on the rescue operations, the Chief Minister said, "The rescue part is almost over and now we are all concentrating to give the best available medical treatment to the injured.
Prime Minister Modi had aslo announced an ex-gratia relief of Rs two lakh to next of the kin of the deceased and Rs. 50,000 to those critically injured in the incident.
The Prime Minister had earlier said that the fire at a temple in Kollam is heart-rending and shocking beyond words.
"My thoughts are with families of the deceased & prayers with the injured," he tweeted earlier in the day.
At least 105 people were charred to death in a fire accident at Puttingal temple during a festival at Paravur in Kollam district early this morning. 350 people have been injured and admitted to various hospitals.
The fire broke out due to the explosion of crackers at the temple. The fire has now been brought under control.The district administration has set up a control room number. The number is 0474-251-2344 (Repeat 0474-251-2344).
(With Agency inputs)
Dehradun: Responding to the BJP demand of an investigation into the assets of former Chief Minister Harish Rawat, the Congress party said they are ready for any kind of probe and a "non-political" commission can be set up for the purpose.
Former minister Pritam Singh, and Surendra Kumar, advisor to the former Chief Minister, told mediapersons here, the party is ready for the probe into the assets Rawat earned during his tenure in the office.
They said the Uttarakhand High Court Chief Justice should be requested to set up a five-member "non-political" probe commission to look into the matter.
State BJP chief Ajay Bhatt had yesterday levelled corruption allegation against the former chief minister and his ministers and demanded a probe into their assets.
Yerevan: A rally to protest recent violence in the disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh drew several thousand people Sunday to the Armenian capital Yerevan.
The flare-up of recent weeks has left at least 92 people dead in the mainly ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan and marchers held a silent protest before heading to a monument commemorating the 30,000 victims of a 1990s conflict which assailed the region.
Participants held aloft Armenian and Nagorny Karabakh flags days after world leaders urged both sides to refrain from further violence amid violations on both sides of a Moscow-mediated truce which came into force last week.
"It pains me to see young people die but I am proud of them," one protester, 21-year-old student Goar Papikian, told AFP. "They showed themselves to be true heroes .. our people will always remember them," Papikian added.
Aram Karapetian, 35, urged an amicable solution to the stand-off.
"We have to stop this war and sit down and talk. This four-day war has shown that Azerbaijan`s weapons cannot resolve the issue of Nagorny-Karabakh, Karapetian said.
The bulk of the international community recognises the disputed territory as part of Azerbaijan.
The 1990s conflict ended in a Russian-brokered 1994 ceasefire but thw two sides never signed a peace deal.
London: A terror suspect arrested earlier this week by Belgian authorities in connection with the attack on Brussels airport last month was scouting for possible targets in the UK last year, a media report here said on Sunday.
Mohamed Abrini, who has been described as the "man in the hat" airport bomber after his image was caught on CCTV at Brussels airport, had spent about a week in Britain in July 2015.
According to 'The Sunday Times', 31-year-old Belgian of Moroccan origin came to Britain to look for potential targets for a "vast" jihadist network.
Images including railway stations and shopping centres were allegedly found on his phone.
Abrini was seen on CCTV before and after the attack on Brussels airport on March 22 and captured in Brussels on Friday after an international hunt.
"We confronted him with the video evidence. He had to admit it was him," a police spokesperson said.
Belgian prosecutors have said Abrini had also told police that he threw the white jacket that he was also wearing at the time of the attack into a rubbish bin and had sold the hat.
A statement said, "He [Abrini] is indeed the third man present at the Brussels national airport attacks. He explained having thrown away his vest [jacket] in a garbage bin and having sold his hat afterwards."
Abrini's fingerprints and DNA were found in a Renault Clio used in the attacks in Paris in November as well as inside an apartment in the Schaerbeek neighbourhood of Brussels used by the airport bombers.
Brussels: After nearly three weeks of frantic searching, Belgian authorities announced Saturday they had finally arrested and identified the elusive man in the hat spotted alongside two suicide bombers who blew themselves up at Brussels Airport on March 22.
In a terse evening statement, the Federal Prosecution Office said recently arrested terror suspect Mohamed Abrini had confessed to being the vest- and hat-wearing man whose video image had been widely circulated by authorities.
After being confronted with the results of the different expert examinations, he confessed his presence at the crime scene, the statement said. Abrini was one of four suspects charged Saturday with participating in terrorist acts linked to the deadly Brussels suicide bombings that killed 32 people and wounded 270 others at the airport and at the citys Maelbeek subway station.
The prosecutors office said Abrini threw away his vest in a garbage bin and sold his hat after the bombings. He had been arrested Friday in a Brussels police raid.
Prosecutors did not respond to calls. A legal representative for Abrini could not be immediately located for comment Saturday night.
Abrini, a 31-year-old Belgian-Moroccan petty criminal, had been suspected of being involved in the Paris and Brussels attacks but his precise role had, until now, never been made explicit. Abrini was also believed to have travelled to Syria, where his younger brother died in 2014 in the Islamic States Francophone brigade.
Abrini and three others - identified as Osama Krayem, Herve BM and Bilal EM, - were all charged Saturday with participating in terrorist murders and the activities of a terrorist group in relation to the attacks, prosecutors said in an earlier statement. Two other suspects arrested in the last couple of days were released after a thorough interrogation, it said.
The developments follow days of arrests and raids in the Belgian capital and could give investigators new insights into the Islamic State group cell believed to have carried out both the attacks in Brussels and the November 13 attacks in Paris, which left 130 dead in the French capital.
Osama Krayem, identified by prosecutors only as Osama K, is known to have left the Swedish city of Malmo to fight in Syria. The prosecutors office accuses him of being the second person at the attack on the Brussels subway station and of being at a shopping mall where the luggage used in the airport bombings was purchased.
Swedish officials had no immediate comment on Krayem.
The prosecutors statement described Herve BM as a Rwandan citizen arrested at the same time as Krayem who is accused of offering assistance to both Abrini and Krayem. Krayem had earlier been identified posting photos from Syria on social media, according to Magnus Ranstorp, a counterterrorism expert at the Swedish National Defence College.
Washington: The Democratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton did not "jeopardise" national security, but was "careless" in managing her emails when she was Secretary of State, the US President Barack Obama said today as he promised an independent probe in the controversy.
"I continue to believe that she has not jeopardised America's national security. Now what I've also said is that -- and she has acknowledged -- that there's a carelessness, in terms of managing e-mails, that she has owned, and she recognises," Obama told Fox News in an interview.
Obama was responding to a question on an ongoing FBI probe into the emails and private email server which Clinton hosted at her home when she served as the Secretary of State in the first term of Obama Administration.
The issue is being used by Clinton's opponents and Republican Party as a key tool against her in this election cycle.
Clinton, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, is eyeing to become the first woman president of the US after Obama leaves office in January.
Defending Clinton, the US president said: "I also think it is important to keep this in perspective. This is somebody who has served her country for four years as Secretary of State, and did an outstanding job. And no one has suggested that in some ways, as a consequence of how she's handled e-mails, that detracted from her excellent ability to carry out her duties."
Promising an independent probe, Obama said he has not talked with his officials on this as he does not want to interfere in the investigation.
"I do not talk to the Attorney General about pending investigations. I do not talk to FBI directors about pending investigations. We have a strict line, and always have maintained it," he said.
"I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI, not just in this case, but in any case. Full stop. Period," he said.
"Nobody gets treated differently when it comes to the Justice Department, because nobody is above the law," he said.
In her defence, Clinton has said that none of the emails sent over her private server were classified at the time and she has already handed the State Department 52,000 pages of documents relating to her correspondence as US Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013.
Beirut: Clashes around Syria's second city Aleppo have killed at least 16 pro-regime fighters and 19 members of Al-Qaeda's affiliate and allied rebel groups within a 24-hour period, a monitor said on Sunday.
"Fierce fighting raged past midnight (today) on several fronts in the south of Aleppo province," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah fighters were fighting alongside regime troops and other loyalist militia against jihadists and rebels, the monitoring group said.
"Shelling and fighting in the past 24 hours has left 19 Syrian and non-Syrian members of Al-Nusra dead... While 16 pro-regime fighters were also killed," the Observatory said, adding that one of the jihadists had blown himself up.
A truce brokered by the United States and Russia, which back opposing sides in Syria's war, does not apply to the fight against jihadists.
Across much of Syria, the February 27 truce has largely held. In areas where Al-Nusra fights alongside allied rebel groups, violence has been frequent in spite of the ceasefire.
Around Aleppo in particular, "the ceasefire has all but collapsed on the main front lines," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
"Al-Nusra, (Islamist rebel group) Ahrar al-Sham and their allies are pushing an offensive to take back turf seized around Aleppo by the regime before the truce came into force," he told AFP.
The civilian death toll has dropped as air raids and barrel bomb strikes by the regime on residential areas have all but ceased, Abdel Rahman said.
"The violence around front lines has by no means stopped," he added.
Furthermore, rebels have frequently shelled Sheikh Maqsud, a mainly Kurdish area of Aleppo, leaving dozens of civilians dead since the truce began, he said.
Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 with anti- government protests but has since evolved into a multi-front war drawing in regional powers.
Beirut: Clashes around Syria`s second city Aleppo have killed at least 16 pro-regime fighters and 19 members of Al-Qaeda`s affiliate and allied rebel groups in 24 hours, a monitor said Sunday.
"Fierce fighting raged past midnight on several fronts in the south of Aleppo province," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah fighters were fighting alongside regime troops and other loyalist militia against jihadists and rebels, the monitoring group said.
"Shelling and fighting in the past 24 hours has left 19 Syrian and non-Syrian members of Al-Nusra dead... while 16 pro-regime fighters were also killed," the Observatory said, adding that one jihadist had blown himself up.
A truce brokered by the United States and Russia, which back opposing sides in Syria`s war, does not apply to the fight against jihadists.
Across much of Syria, the February 27 truce has largely held. In areas where Al-Nusra fights alongside allied rebel groups, violence has been frequent despite the ceasefire.
Around Aleppo in particular, "the ceasefire has all but collapsed on the main front lines", Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
"Al-Nusra, (Islamist rebel group) Ahrar al-Sham and their allies are pushing an offensive to take back turf seized around Aleppo by the regime before the truce came into force," he told AFP.
Inside the city, the Observatory said regime barrel bomb strikes on Sunday hit the northeastern district of Al-Haidariyah, injuring a number of people including children.
"This is a new violation of the ceasefire inside the city," Abdel Rahman said. He said neither the jihadist Islamic State (IS) group nor Al-Nusra were present in the area.
AFP video footage shows at least five people injured including three children residents and aid workers carried to ambulances.
"They`re all civilians, there are no militants or Daesh here," one man said, using an Arabic acronym for IS. "They`re all children and women."
An aid worker said that a family -- father, mother and five children -- were injured when a barrel bomb hit the neighbourhood.
Rebels have frequently shelled Sheikh Maqsud, a mainly Kurdish area of Aleppo, leaving dozens of civilians dead since the truce began, Maqsud, a mainly Kurdish area of Aleppo, leaving dozens of civilians dead since the truce began, Abdel Rahman said.
Syria`s Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi said Sunday loyalist Syrian troops were preparing a major operation to retake control of Aleppo city with Russian air cover.
"With our Russian partners we are preparing an operation to free Aleppo and block all illegal armed groups that have not joined or have broken the ceasefire deal," Russia`s Interfax news agency quoted Halqi as saying after meeting Russian lawmakers in Damascus.ceasefire deal," Russia`s Interfax news agency quoted Halqi as saying after meeting Russian lawmakers in Damascus.
Syria`s conflict erupted in March 2011 with anti-government protests but has since evolved into a multi-front war drawing in regional powers.
Berlin: German Justice Minister Heiko Maas appealed in a newspaper interview to media to hand over the Panama Papers that show how offshore firms are used to stash the wealth of the world`s elite.
Governments around the globe have started investigating possible financial wrongdoing by the world`s rich and powerful since details of hundreds of thousands of clients were leaked from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, which has set up around 250,000 companies in the last four decades.
The scandal broke when an investigation was published last Sunday, with German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung saying it had received a cache of 11.5 million leaked documents from Mossack Fonseca and then shared them with more than 100 other international news outlets and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
Maas told German newspaper Tagesspiegel that tax investigators and lawyers in Germany were carefully looking at all clues related to reports on the Panama Papers and several investigations were already underway.
"It would help bring about justice if important documents were handed over to the authorities," he said, adding that this would also boost revenues for state coffers.
He said he was optimistic that investigating authorities and the media would together find a way to at least exchange "certain valuable information".
On Friday a spokeswoman for the German finance ministry said the government had taken note of comments from media that they did not want to hand over documents, adding that the media had the right not to.
On how to tackle offshore firms, Maas said if international pressure did not suffice to end "criminal manipulation", Germany would need to consider further national measures.
"We should take up an important suggestion from former chancellor Helmut Schmidt to prohibit financial deposits that benefit these firms and people who are legally registered in tax and supervisory havens," he said.
He said Germany had long been working on a proposal to make firms and banks more liable and added that higher and more effective sanctions were needed. Big firms need to feel the effect of such sanctions too, he said, adding that he would make a concrete proposal on that this year.
Brussels: The Brussels-based Islamic State jihadists behind the Paris attacks planned a fresh strike in France but targeted the Belgian capital instead as police closed in, the federal prosecutor said Sunday.
The prosecutor also announced that the so-called "man in the hat" Mohamed Abrini had been charged with "terrorist murders" over the attacks in Brussels last month.
Suicide bombers claimed 32 lives when they blew themselves up at Brussels airport and at a metro station on March 22 but left a trail for police leading directly to the November Paris attacks which killed 130 people.
"Numerous elements in the investigation have shown that the terrorist group initially had the intention to strike in France again," the Belgian federal prosecutor's office said in a statement.
"Surprised by the speed of the progress in the ongoing investigation, they urgently took the decision to strike in Brussels."
The prosecutor gave no further details but the Brussels onslaught followed the March 18 arrest of top Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam after four months on the run.
The prosecutor also gave no details of the planned attack in France but late last month, French police arrested Reda Kriket near Paris, finding weapons and explosives in a flat he had used to suggest he was planning an attack of "extreme violence."
Belgium has arrested two suspects, identified as Abderrahmane A. and Rabah M, in connection with the Kriket case and on Thursday both were remanded in custody, along with three other suspects held in connection with the November Paris attacks.
Shortly after Kriket`s arrest, French prosecutor Francois Molins had said that "while no specific target has been identified, nonetheless everything leads us to believe that the discovery of this cache (of weapons) has allowed us to prevent an action of extreme violence by a terrorist network". In Sunday`s statement, the Belgian prosecutor said Abrini, the man seen in CCTV footage with the two suicide bombers at Brussels airport, had been charged with "terrorist murders".
"The investigating judge specialised in terrorism cases has put Mohamed Abrini in detention in connection with the investigation into the Brussels and Zaventem (airport) attacks," the statement said.
"He is charged with participation in the activities of a terrorist group, terrorist murders and attempts to commit terrorist murders."
On Saturday, the judge leading the Belgian investigation into the Paris carnage laid the same charges against Abrini, who was arrested Friday.
The 31-year-old Belgian of Moroccan origin confessed to being "the man in the hat" who calmly walked away from the devastated departure hall, the prosecutor said Saturday.
He then returned on foot to central Brussels, discarding his hat and coat on the way before disappearing into thin air as the police launched a fresh appeal to the public for help.Abrini was a long-time petty criminal who grew up with Abdeslam in Belgium`s troubled Molenbeek area, home to several other suspects who all share a similar story of getting on the wrong side of the law and becoming radicalised.
The Belgian authorities have faced intense criticism over their handling of the Brussels attacks and the investigation, especially as it has emerged that many of the suspects were known to the police.
Critics say the government has not done enough to prevent extremists targeting Muslim youth in areas such as Molenbeek, with Belgium proportionately the biggest source of foreign fighters going to join the Islamic State group in Syria.
Abdeslam, whose brother Brahim blew himself up in Paris, was seen driving to the French capital with Abrini shortly before the attacks but he apparently balked at the same mission and fled back to Brussels.
Police finally arrested him not far from the family home in Molenbeek after apparently stumbling upon another jihadist safe house in the Forest area of the city.
There has been much recrimination in Belgium about how he and the others were able to remain free for so long, with two ministers offering to resign.
Buoyed by Abdeslam`s arrest, the police launched an increasing series of raids, mainly in Brussels, resulting in more detentions as they closed the net.
Abdeslam is now awaiting extradition to France.
"That is justice... he who does something must pay the price," Abdeslam`s father, who has lived in Belgium for 40 years, told French radio Europe 1 on Tuesday.
"I hope everyone will speak now... we were there, we were happy, we had enough, we went out, had fun but now, we cannot even leave our house," he said.
Analamanga: Madagascar`s President Hery Rajaonarimampianina on Sunday appointed a new prime minister, two days after the island nation was plunged into confusion when the previous premier denied having stepped down.
The new head of government was named as current interior minister Olivier Solonandrasana, according to a statement read out by Roger Ralala, secretary general of the presidency.
The development comes after the presidency on Friday announced the resignation of Prime Minister Jean Ravelonarivo following weeks of political conflict, only for Ravelonarivo to swiftly deny the claim.
The President sought to clarify the situation on Sunday, telling reporters he "had received the prime minister`s resignation".
According to local media, Ravelonarivo and Rajaonarimampianina had for weeks been at loggerheads over issues including the poor condition of the island`s main roads and rising crime in the capital Antananarivo.
Solonandrasana, 51, is expected to form a new government in the coming days.
The Indian Ocean island nation has endured several years of turmoil after Marc Ravalomanana was ousted as president in a 2009 coup that led to the withdrawal of foreign investment and donor money.
In 2013, a presidential election that was designed to resolve complex power struggles brought Rajaonarimampianina to power. Ravelonarivo took office as prime minister last year.
Madagascar remains one of the world`s poorest countries, heavily dependent on foreign aid, and any renewed political trouble could threaten development.
London: In an unprecedented decision, David Cameron on Sunday released his tax records to defuse the growing anger over his father's offshore business that threatened his premiership, but the bold move appears set to plunge him into more trouble over 200,000 pounds he received from his mother.
Cameron released a summary of his tax returns from 2009-15, and also revealed that his mother transferred two separate payments of 100,000 pounds (collectively USD 280,000) to his accounts in 2011, allowing the family estate to avoid a potential 80,000 pounds worth of inheritance tax.
The move came a day after Cameron admitted in an emotional speech to the Conservative party's spring conference that he "should have handled this better" and "will learn the lessons" from the row triggered by the so-called Panama Papers leak.
The accounts disclose that Cameron has declared nearly 1.1 million in earnings over the past six years and paid 400,000 pounds in income tax.
Cameron, 49, published the six years' worth of accounts in a dossier in an bid to end speculation about his tax affairs after one of the most difficult weeks of his premiership.
The release - never before done by a UK prime minister or political leader - shows that his approach to his finances is not dissimilar to many other middle-class families.
However, there are further questions over a 200,000-pound gift from his mother, which is being perceived as a move to avoid inheritance tax. It emerged that his mother transferred two separate payments of 100,000 pounds to his accounts in 2011, allowing the family estate to avoid a potential 80,000 pounds worth of inheritance tax.
The payments by Mary Cameron to her son in May and July 2011 were given tax-free, and will only become liable to inheritance tax of up to 40 per cent if she dies within seven years of handing over the money.
Downing Street said the payments were an attempt to "balance" the sums received by all their children.
The figures show that, on top of his income as Prime Minister, his 50 per cent share of the rental income on the Camerons' family home in London amounted to 46,899 pounds, he received 9,834 pounds in taxable expenses from the Tory party and 3,052 pounds in interest on savings in a high street bank.
The figures show that when he first entered Downing Street in 2010, he benefited from a 20,000 pounds tax-free allowance as part of his 142,500 pounds salary, although in subsequent years he did not take advantage of the long-standing perk available to occupants of Number 10.
Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Cameron had more questions to answer.
"We need to know what he's actually returned as a tax return. We need to know why he put this money overseas in the first place, and whether he made anything out of it or not before 2010 when he became prime minister. These are questions that he must answer," Corbyn said.
The issue is set to dominate proceedings when the British Parliament reopens after a 17-day Easter break on Monday.
Yesterday, Cameron said he was to blame for the handling of revelations about his investment in his father's Bahamas-based Blairmore Holdings fund.
The fund was named in the leak of 11 million documents belonging to Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca (MF). They showed Ian Cameron had been an MF client when establishing the fund for investors.
"It has not been a great week. I know that I should have handled this better. I know there are lessons to learn and I will learn them," Cameron said.
As he was speaking, hundreds of angry protesters carrying placards reading "Tories Out" and "Cameron Must Go" marched up to Downing Street calling for Cameron's resignation.
He has announced a new task force - led by Britain's tax authority and the National Crime Agency - to investigate tax-dodging allegations in the Panama Papers. The task force will investigate the leaked documents to identify clients of the Panamanian firm suspected of money laundering and tax evasion and publish its findings later this year.
The Panama Papers revelations have sparked a storm around the world, including in India, where high-profile figures have been implicated for tax avoidance.
Cameron has been under increasing pressure as he previously refused to give details of his family's money held offshore in a Caribbean tax haven.
Istanbul: The world's Islamic countries began their annual meeting on in Istanbul, where they are set to focus on the Palestinian cause, conflicts in member states and combating terrorism.
The meeting of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) comes once again at a time of turmoil in many Muslim nations, with conflicts in Syria and Yemen dragging on, and several states including Turkey, bloodied by militant attacks.
The 13th annual OIC conference began with senior officials adopting the agenda and will be followed by a foreign ministers meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. Over 30 heads of state and government will attend the summit hosted by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday and Friday.
With guests set to include Saudi King Salman, the event is taking place under the highest security, with police stationed all around the venue in central Istanbul.
The OIC said the summit was to issue a resolution on the Palestinian issue and support for international efforts to relaunch a "collective political process".
The gathering comes at a time of rising Islamophobia in many western nations in response to a spate of attacks by the Islamic State group.
Islamic leaders will also "consider the situation of Muslim communities in non-OIC member States and the issue of combating terrorism."
Turkey has also been a victim of several bloody IS attacks, and the Istanbul summit comes a day after the US warned of a "credible threat" of attacks in the city.
Under Erdogan, who has made Islam one of central themes of his politics, Turkey has upped its economic and political influence throughout the Islamic world, particularly in lands in the Middle East once part of the Ottoman Empire.
However this policy has has not always met with success and frosty relations with several Muslim states, including Egypt, have led some analysts to conclude its aim of "zero problems with neighbours" ended up having exactly the opposite effect.
In a speech on Saturday, Erdogan hailed the role Turkey has played by hosting nearly three million refugees from neighbouring Syria.
"In the world, there is no state, no country that is capable of assuming such a burden. The events this year that targeted us will not deflect us from this path," he said.
A big question mark hangs over the level of representation from Egypt, which has had strained ties with Turkey since the ousting of Ankara ally Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
Kabul: Former Taliban commander Faridoon Hanafi, who recently joined the peace process, has said the group takes orders from Pakistan, which mobilizes and equips the militant outfit.
"I have seen with my own eyes that Taliban gets its orders from Pakistan and even Punjabis admired me many times for my hard work and gave me money," Tolo news quoted Hanafi as saying.
Hanafi said he regrets fighting against the Afghan Government for six years.
"When I transferred to Nangarhar I saw that all Pakistan's words are lies and they want to destroy my country and my home and I find out that they are wrong, so I decided to support government programs and I stopped fighting and I joined the peace process," he added.
Hanafi revealed that he has two brothers, both of whom were in the Afghan forces. One of his brothers died while battling Taliban.
He later called on other Taliban fighters to lay down their arms and join the peace process and take part in Afghanistan's reconstruction process.
Islamabad: Pakistan on Sunday expressed its condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in a massive fire at the Puttingal temple in India's southern Kerala state in the wee hours on Sunday.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement condoled the incident in which at least 98 people have lost their lives and more than 350 were injured in the fire.
"The people and the government of Pakistan express their deep condolences on the loss of precious lives, resulting from fire breakout in the temple in South Kerala, India. Our sympathies are with the bereaved families. We wish early recovery to all injured people," the statement by Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
An explosion in piles of crackers during fireworks display is said to be the reason behind the fire that broke out at around 3.30 a.m. The police had earlier warned the temple authorities to restrict usage of fireworks.
Meanwhile, rescue operations are underway.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced an ex-gratia relief of Rs. two lakh to next of the kin of the deceased and Rs. 50,000 to those critically injured in the incident.
He will be visiting the site with a team of burn specialist doctors.
Moscow: Loyalist Syrian troops are preparing a major operation to retake control of the northern city of Aleppo with Russian air cover, Syria's Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi said today.
"With our Russian partners we are preparing an operation to free Aleppo and block all illegal armed groups that have not joined or have broken the ceasefire deal," Interfax news agency quoted Halqi as saying following a meeting with Russian lawmakers in Damascus.
He said that regaining control of Aleppo from rebels hostile to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad would allow government forces to advance east to Deir Ezzor, some 60 percent of which is under the control of the Islamic State group.
Damascus has vowed with the support of its Russian allies to drive IS out of the area after its recent victory over the group two weeks ago in the ancient city of Palmyra.
Aleppo, formerly Syria's economic capital and the country's second city, has since 2012 been divided into zones held between rebel groups and areas still under government control.
A February 27 truce brokered by the United States and Russia, which back opposing sides in Syria's war, does not apply to the fight against jihadist groups, which Damascus is now concentrating on dislodging.
Around Aleppo "the ceasefire has all but collapsed along the main front lines" of the conflict, Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Sunday.
The Observatory said earlier that 24 hours of clashes around Aleppo had left at least 16 pro-regime fighters and 19 members of Al-Qaeda's affiliate and allied rebel groups dead.
More than 270,000 people have been killed since Syria's conflict first broke out in March 2011.
Beirut/Moscow: The Russian air force and Syrian military are preparing a joint operation to take Aleppo from rebels, the Syrian prime minister was quoted saying on Sunday, and an opposition official said a ceasefire was on the verge of collapse.
With a UN envoy due in Damascus in a bid to advance struggling diplomatic efforts, the "cessation of hostilities agreement" brokered by Russia and the United States came under new strain as government and rebel forces fought near Aleppo.
The ceasefire came into effect in February with the aim of paving the way for a resumption of talks to end the five-year-long war. But it has been widely violated, with each side blaming the other for breaches. The fighting south of Aleppo marks the most significant challenge yet to the deal.
Diplomacy has meanwhile made little progress with no compromise over the future of President Bashar al-Assad, his position strengthened by Iranian and Russian military support.
A top Iranian official, in comments to Iran TV, rejected what he described as a U.S. request for Tehran`s help to make Assad leave power, saying he should serve out his term and be allowed to run in a presidential election "as any Syrian".
Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halaki told a delegation of visiting Russian lawmakers of preparations to "liberate" Aleppo, Syria`s biggest city and commercial hub before the conflict that erupted in 2011. Aleppo is divided into areas controlled separately by the government and opposition.
"We, together with our Russian partners, are preparing for an operation to liberate Aleppo and to block all illegal armed groups which have not joined or have broken the ceasefire deal," he was quoted as saying by TASS news agency.
Dmitry Sablin, a member of Russia`s upper house of parliament and a member of the delegation, told RIA news agency "Russian aviation will help the Syrian army`s ground offensive operation".
The deployment of the Russian air force to Syria last year helped tip the war Assad`s way as it bombed rebels supported by his enemies including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States. President Vladimir Putin last month withdrew some of the Russian forces, but maintained an air base in Latakia, and kept up strikes on the Islamic State group.
Neither the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front or Islamic State are included in the partial ceasefire.
Rebels have reported the resumption of Russian air strikes south of Aleppo, an important theatre where Iranian forces and Lebanon`s Hezbollah are fighting in support of the army and the Nusra Front is deployed in close proximity to rebels.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a total of 35 combatants had been killed on both sides in a 24 hour period in the area, where fighting has been raging for some 10 days.
"ABOUT TO COLLAPSE"
A member of the main opposition council said the last 10 days had "witnessed a serious deterioration, to the point where the ceasefire is about to collapse". Bassma Kodmani of the High Negotiations Committee also told Journal du Dimanche that a US-Russian ceasefire monitoring mission was "powerless".
The war has killed more than 250,000 people, created the world`s worst refugee crisis, and allowed for the rise of Islamic State.
Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said "in Aleppo there is a real collapse of the truce".
The army says groups that had agreed to the cessation of hostilities had taken part in Nusra Front attacks on government-held positions south of Aleppo. Free Syrian Army groups meanwhile blame the fighting on government violations.
"The air strikes are now roughly back to what they were," said Mohamed Rasheed, head of the media office with the Jaysh al-Nasr rebel group. A Syrian military source said: "The battles are raging because ... armed groups that were part of the (truce) joined Nusra in the attack."
The Observatory also reported fighting on Sunday between government and rebel forces near the opposition-held town of Douma outside Damascus, and said government helicopters had dropped barrel bombs on rebel-held areas north of Homs.
Barrel bombs are oil drums filled with explosives. While the government denies dropping them, their use has been widely recorded, including by a U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria.
IRAN REJECTS US "PRECONDITION"
UN envoy Staffan de Mistura is due to arrive in Damascus on Sunday evening, and is expected to meet Syrian officials on Monday. He said last week he would go to Damascus and Tehran to sound out their position on a political transition before beginning a new round of peace talks on Wednesday.
De Mistura has said the next round of talks needs to "be quite concrete in the direction of a political process leading to a real beginning of a political transition".
Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran`s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei`s top adviser on international affairs, said US Secretary of State John Kerry had asked "Iran to help so that Bashar Assad leaves.
"We should ask them: "What does this have to do with you? Shouldn`t the Syrian people decide?`"
"From Iran`s point of view Bashar Assad and his government should remain as a legal government and legal president until the end of his term. And Bashar Assad shall be able to take part in a presidential election as any Syrian citizen. And their precondition that Bashar Assad should go is a red line for us."
In a sign of Assad`s confidence, the Syrian government plans to hold parliamentary elections on Wednesday. Salim al-Muslat, opposition spokesman, said the vote was illegitimate.
"I don`t know how they can really announce an election in Syria. In Idlib or in Aleppo or in Deir al-Zor or in Homs, can people go there and vote?" he said.
London: British Prime Minister David Cameron published his tax records on Sunday in an attempt to draw a line under questions about his personal finances raised by the mention of his late father in the Panama Papers for setting up an offshore fund.
The revelations have led to demands for Cameron`s resignation and handed ammunition to opposition lawmakers who questioned why he was reluctant to detail his financial connections with his father.
Cameron took the unorthodox step of releasing the normally confidential details after saying he should have handled the scrutiny of his family`s tax affairs better.
The documents from RNS Chartered Accountants - which cover six years - show Cameron paid tax of 75,898 pounds ($107,198) on income of 200,307 pounds in the 2014-2015 financial year, the most recent one included.
His income comprised his 140,522 pound salary, taxable expenses of 9,834 pounds, 46,899 pounds from half of the share of rent from his family home in London and 3,052 pounds in interest on savings, according to the record.
Scores of politicians and business figures have been implicated in the Panama Papers, including the prime minister of Iceland who has since stepped down. The 11.5 million documents leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca detail the creation of more than 200,000 companies in offshore tax havens.
While Cameron is not accused of doing anything illegal, he made four different statements over four days about his late father`s inclusion in the documents.
He said on Thursday he once had a stake in his father`s offshore trust and had profited from it.
He said the unit investment trust was not set up to avoid tax but to invest in dollar-denominated shares and that he had paid all taxes due on his own investment, which was worth "something like 30,000 pounds" when he sold out in January 2010, before he became prime minister.
TAX TASKFORCE
Cameron`s admission of fault comes after a torrid period for his Conservative government. It is divided over a June 23 referendum on whether to remain in the European Union, has been forced to backtrack on welfare cuts and has been accused of not protecting Britain`s steel industry.
Seeking to further take back the initiative, Cameron also announced on Sunday a new taskforce, jointly led by Britain`s tax authority and National Crime Agency, to build on the work Britain has done to tackle money laundering and tax evasion.
When Britain hosted a G8 summit in 2013, Cameron put tackling tax avoidance at the heart of the agenda. Some of Britain`s former colonies increasingly rely on revenues from shell companies and trusts that often hide wealth.
"The UK has been at the forefront of international action to tackle the global scourge of aggressive tax avoidance and evasion, and international corruption more broadly," Cameron said in a statement.
"There is clearly further to go and this taskforce will bring the best of British expertise to deal with any wrongdoing relating to the Panama Papers."
The government said it had tracked down 2 billion pounds ($2.82 billion) from offshore tax dodgers since 2010, and authorities were already investigating 700 current leads with links to Panama.
The taskforce will receive 10 million pounds of funding to start work, the government said.
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By Minami Funakoshi TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's government and auto giants Toyota Motor Corp Nissan Motor Co will join in an effort to develop intelligent maps by 2018, the Nikkei daily said, as competition heats up to improve the technology key for autonomous driving. Japanese automakers, map-making companies, and the government will get together to generate standardised intelligent maps, with plans to incorporate driving data gathered by the automakers, the paper said on Sunday. A Toyota spokesman declined to comment, while officials at Nissan could not be reached immediately for comment. Intelligent mapping systems supply information to control self-driving cars, which are equipped with street-scanning sensors to measure traffic and road conditions. German auto supplier Bosch said on Friday it was in talks with high-definition digital maps company HERE, exploring whether to take a stake. Volkswagen's Audi, Daimler's Mercedes-Benz, BMW and car parts supplier Continental are also working on technologies for autonomous or semi-autonomous cars. (Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
By Ginger Gibson and Michelle Conlin WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Donald Trump's Republican rivals, reinvigorated by his loss in Wisconsin's primary, doubled down on Wednesday on their efforts to block the billionaire front-runner from capturing the party's presidential nomination. Ted Cruz's emphatic victory in Wisconsin on Tuesday night dealt momentum to his once long-shot bid to force a contested convention in July by blocking Trump from amassing enough delegates to secure the nomination. The U.S. senator from Texas made the case he is increasingly viewed as the main Trump alternative by Republicans who cannot bring themselves to support Trump as their nominee for the Nov. 8 election. Allies of Ohio Governor John Kasich, who is positioning himself as a mainstream candidate who could emerge from a contested convention, met in Washington to brainstorm about how they could use obscure procedural rules to their advantage when the party convenes in Cleveland. One group trying to defeat Trump, who has alarmed many Republican establishment figures with his comments on immigration, Muslims and trade, were hopeful on Wednesday of a cash infusion to fund their efforts. "Our funders are committed to nominating a principled conservative that can win in November and can help Republicans up and down the ballot," said Katie Packer, who is leading the anti-Trump Our Principals PAC. "They understand that this is a long slog now and they are supportive of our mission and strategy. I expect that we will have the funds necessary to execute." U.S. Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, lobbyists and congressional staffers were among those who met with Kasich advisers on Wednesday to discuss what one Republican congressional staffer present admitted was the governor's "long-shot" bid. He has won only his home state in nominating contests so far. Kasich's campaign has "a plan going into the convention ... and if the convention goes to a brokered convention, they have a legitimate chance," the staffer said. SHIFT TO NEW YORK The next big test in stopping Trump will be New York, the state he calls home. A Monmouth University poll of New York Republicans released on Monday showed Trump with 52 percent of the state's support, a huge lead over Kasich at 25 percent, and Cruz at 17 percent ahead of the state's April 19 primary. "It's very important for Trump to bounce back strong. The sense of his inevitability is one of his strengths," said David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Center at Southern Illinois University. Trump was uncharacteristically silent on Twitter the day after his Wisconsin loss, and his only statement on Tuesday night was written. Cruz met with black and Hispanic religious leaders on Wednesday in the New York City borough of the Bronx. "The men and women of Wisconsin resoundingly rejected (Trump's) campaign," Cruz told reporters afterward. "Donald has no solutions to the problems that were facing." Republican New York Chairman Ed Cox said he believed the state could decide the nomination. "Given the wide diversity in New York, I think it will be a definitive moment," he said. A Reuters/Ipsos poll on Tuesday showed Cruz statistically even with Trump among Republicans nationally. His recent gains marked the first time since November that a rival had threatened Trump's standing at the head of the Republican pack. Trump has 743 delegates, Cruz 517, and Kasich 143, according to an Associated Press count. Trump would need to win about 55 percent of the remaining delegates to reach the 1,237 threshold. "We fully expect this to go to Cleveland," Packer said of the anti-Trump effort. CLINTON GOES ON ATTACK On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders, a Brooklyn-born U.S. senator representing Vermont, is trying to stage a come-from-behind upset of Hillary Clinton, but will struggle to overcome a large deficit in delegates. Sanders' big win in Wisconsin, which brought his victory tally to six out of the last seven contests, added to Clinton's frustration over her inability to knock out a rival who has attacked her from the left. That frustration was on full display on Wednesday when the former secretary of state gave two live televised interviews in which she criticized Sanders. In contrast to a Republican primary season that has been rife with personal insults, the Democrats have largely avoided personal attacks and stuck to policy arguments. But Clinton attacked Sanders for his position on guns and said he lacked a depth of policy understanding. "You cant really help people if you dont know how to do what you say you want to do," Clinton said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." She criticized him for an interview to New York's Daily News in which he failed to offer specifics on how he would break up large banks - a key part of his campaign message - when he was asked how he would put to use the existing financial regulation Dodd-Frank law. "It's not clear that he knows how Dodd-Frank works," Clinton told CNN in an interview on Wednesday afternoon. The Democratic Party nominating race moves to Wyoming on April 9 before New York on April 19. (Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Susan Cornwell and Amanda Becker; Editing by Frances Kerry and Peter Cooney)
By Tim Hepher and Gernot Heller PARIS/BERLIN (Reuters) - France and Germany have joined Britain in suspending export credit facilities for Airbus jet deliveries, expanding the fallout from a potential corruption probe in Britain, several people familiar with the matter said on Friday. The move follows Britain's decision last week to suspend financing and alert the Serious Fraud Office after Airbus Group said it had found anomalies over the declaration of overseas agents and that it had itself notified the UK authorities. Unusually, it leaves the world's two largest planemakers, Airbus and Boeing , both facing paralysis over government export financing as Congressional delays leave U.S. Export Import bank unable to support Airbus's U.S. rival. In Europe, Airbus draws on financing support for some sales from Britain, France and Germany where its main factories are. The nations typically act in concert, offering guarantees in proportion to the industrial work in each country, but declining to take up the slack whenever one of them refuses to take part. A German economy ministry spokesman confirmed that the financing, provided on its behalf by Allianz unit Euler-Hermes, was no longer available. Berlin is also examining whether the UK episode could have consequences for export credits already awarded, he added. In France, three sources said export guarantees were being withheld for the time being. "Audits are being carried out in the UK and we are waiting for the conclusions for those," a French government official said. Airbus Group declined to add to a previous statement that it was co-operating with export credit agencies and that it expected financing to be resumed in the near future. For now, the market impact is seen as limited as the use of export credits has dwindled to around 6 percent of deliveries from 40 percent at the height of the 2008-10 financial crisis. But the unprecedented halt raises doubt over the financing for some upcoming deliveries, pushing up demand for commercial loans and placing pressure on Airbus to offer bridge financing. "The problem is that deals financed with export credit are usually the tough-to-finance ones, so finding a commercial alternative is not always that simple," a market source said. AGENT FEES AND NAMES The agency which underwrites aircraft exports in Britain has said it will not support Airbus deliveries until it gets assurances about Airbus's current practices on overseas agents. The UK case involves discrepancies over the amount of agents' fees disclosed in applications for export support, or missing names of third parties, in some cases dating back several years, two people familiar with the matter said. A person responsible for overseeing some of the information supplied in export credit applications is no longer with the group, people familiar with the matter said. Airbus Group declined comment. The decision by Airbus to report itself reflects efforts by many aerospace companies to toughen compliance and review their records for past failings after a series of industry scandals. In its just-published annual report, Airbus said a newly centralized compliance team was revising the procedures on hiring consultants and warned investors this may "lead to additional commercial disputes or other consequences". Europe's largest aerospace group says it is co-operating with four existing criminal probes into suspected irregularities in defense or security markets, including a British investigation into a $3.3 billion communications deal with Saudi Arabia and a German probe into the sale of fighter jets to Austria. (Additional reporting by Matthieu Protard, Leigh Thomas,; Editing by Geert De Clercq and David Evans)
A family in Rosemont narrowly avoided tragedy Saturday night when a stray bullet tore through its kitchen window.
The bullet just missed a man who happened to be in the kitchen at the time. He dove to the ground and told his wife to do the same.
"He told me to duck, there is gunfire," said Zora Bendjilani. "I lay on the ground. I didn't know what to do. And he told me to call the police."
Officers were dispatched to the intersection of Bellechasse Street and 19th Avenue after receiving several 911 reports of gunfire around 11:15 p.m.
A large perimeter was put in place as tactical and canine units were deployed to the neighbourhood.
Another stray bullet struck a gazebo in the yard of an apartment not far from Bendjilani's home.
Police have questioned two people in relation to the incident but no charges have yet been laid. They believe that one of those people was the intended target of the shooting.
They also believe the incident is related to street gangs who operate in the area.
Last month a man was shot one block over from Saturday night's shooting. That man, who survived the attack, refused to cooperate with police.
"The neighbourhood has always been like this," Bendjilani told Radio-Canada. "But I never imagined that one day it would happen at my home."
Bendjilani added that she and her husband were badly shaken by the shooting.
"I wouldn't wish for anyone to go through this," she told Radio-Canada. "It's a very painful moment."
The area was reopened to traffic around 4:30 a.m., but police say the investigation continues.
By Jack Kim SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised a successful test of a new engine for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), state media said on Saturday, in their latest report of advances in an arms program that has attracted U.N. sanctions. South Korea and the United States have shown scepticism over the North's statements about rapid progress in its nuclear and missile programs ahead of a ruling party congress in May, where analysts expect it to declare itself a major nuclear weapons state. Tension has remained high on the Korean peninsula after the North's nuclear test and a long-range rocket launch earlier in the year and South Korean and U.S. troops conducted large-scale joint drills amid harsh rhetoric from both rival Koreas. The engine was ignited at Kim's command and released a fiery blast, and the test showed the indigenously designed rocket fulfilled all required conditions, the North's official KCNA news agency said. "Dear Comrade Kim Jong Un said now we can mount an ever more powerful nuclear warhead on a new intercontinental ballistic rocket and put the den of evil in the United States, and all over the world, within our strike range," the agency said. The test was conducted at the North's missile station near its west coast, where, in February, the country launched a long-range rocket that put an object into space orbit, KCNA said. South Korea's defense officials did not immediately provide comment on the authenticity of Saturday's report. The North said in March it had miniaturized a nuclear warhead to be mounted on ballistic missiles and conducted a simulated re-entry test of a ballistic missile, which could indicate advances in its ICBM program, if true. But South Korean officials questioned those assertions and said the North was several years away from developing an ICBM. The United States said there was no proof of the North's statements and urged Pyongyang to halt actions that fuel tension. The North conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and the rocket launch in February, in defiance of international warnings and past U.N. sanctions, triggering a new Security Council resolution that imposed more punishment. Despite its assertions, the North has yet to conduct a flight-test of a long-range missile or an ICBM and show mastery of the technology needed to bring a missile back into the atmosphere and hit a target with precision. The North said its January nuclear test was a successful hydrogen bomb test, but many experts and officials in the South and the United States said the blast was too small to have been from a successful test of such a weapon. (Additional reporting by Hooyeon Kim; Editing by James Dalgleish and Clarence Fernandez)
Thirteen North Koreans working at a restaurant in a foreign country have defected to South Korea - after TV dramas alerted them to Pyongyang propaganda.
The North Koreans - 12 females and one man - were welcomed by officials in Seoul, where a news conference was held.
South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon Hee told reporters the workers had decided to defect after watching TV dramas and surfing the web.
People working in North Korean-operated restaurants overseas have previously defected, but this is the first time multiple workers have escaped.
The restaurants, in countries such as China and Cambodia, generate an estimated 7.1m in income annually.
This money is channelled to the North, according to the South's Unification Ministry.
The restaurant workers often perform musical routines in addition to serving food, and are chosen in part for their perceived loyalty to the regime.
North Korean defections are a bitter point of contention between the rival North and South.
Pyongyang usually accuses Seoul of enticing North Korean citizens to defect, something Seoul denies.
Jeong did not reveal the country where the 13 were working, to avoid diplomatic problems and endanger North Koreans still working in the country.
The Unification Ministry's website says more than 29,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea as of March.
ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria accused France on Thursday of crossing a "red line" after French newspaper Le Monde published a front-page picture of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika among leaders it said were named in the Panama Papers leaks. The leaked documents from a Panamanian law firm have put the offshore wealth of politicians and public figures under worldwide scrutiny. Just days before a visit by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, Algeria summoned the French ambassador on Wednesday to complain that French media reports on the issue were a "malicious campaign". Valls starts a two-day visit to Algiers on Saturday to discuss trade ties and investment opportunities. Algeria, an OPEC member, is seeking to diversify its economy away from oil and gas. Algeria fought a war of independence through 1962. Paris has declined to apologise for the colonial past. Interior Minister Nouredine Bedoui on Thursday described the summons as an "appropriate reaction" to the media coverage of Bouteflika. "It is our duty as Algerians not to tolerate harming our symbols and constitutional institutions," the official news agency APS quoted him as saying. "This a red line." Documents leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca have raised public outrage over how the world's rich and powerful are able to stash wealth and avoid taxes. (Reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is getting a taste of the "New York values" he derided in Iowa as Republicans turn to the next big U.S. presidential contest in the home state of front-runner Donald Trump. The New York billionaire lost the Wisconsin Republican primary on Tuesday to Cruz and is seeking to rebound in New York on April 19. He won the backing on Thursday of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was irked by Cruz's values comments. "It's New York City. We're family. I can make fun of New York but you can't," Giuliani, who led the city through the trauma of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, told the New York Post. "I support Trump. I'm gonna vote for Trump," he said. Ohio Governor John Kasich, running third in the Republican race, chimed in with an ad called "Values," part of a seven-figure ad buy in New York and Pennsylvania, which votes on April 26. "New Yorkers aren't stupid and they certainly won't fall for Ted Cruz's lame soliloquies and flattery after he slammed their values," said Kasich spokeswoman Connie Wehrkamp. Trump canceled a Friday trip to California to focus on New York. He turned on Cruz Wednesday night during his first rally in the state since the double-digit loss in Wisconsin. "I've got this guy standing over there, looking at me, talking about New York values with scorn in his face, with hated, with hatred of New York, Trump said, drawing a chorus of boos. Cruz credited his Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses victory in part to his attacks on Trump's "New York values." He told ABC on Thursday the phrase referred to the state's liberal Democrats. Cruz took another hit in the Bronx, where a group of high school students protesting his stance on immigration threatened a walkout if their principal did not cancel his appearance. "Most of us are immigrants or come from immigrant backgrounds. Ted Cruz goes against everything our school stands for," Destiny Domeneck, 16, told the New York Daily News. School authorities complied, the newspaper reported on Thursday. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Megan Cassella; Editing by Bill Trott)
A six-month-old issue of Marie Claire has been banned in Thailand because it carries an article that police said had criticised a member of the royal family.
The lifestyle magazine's French edition from November 2015 is subject to a police order which outlaws copies being imported or distributed within the country.
Any copies found will be confiscated or destroyed by the police.
Thailand's police chief has said the negative piece was defamatory and malicious - "affecting national security, peace and order, and the morale of the people."
It is not known why there was such a delay in outlawing the publication, but the magazine would not have been widely on sale in the kingdom.
The monarchy is a delicate subject in Thailand at the moment as King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest reigning monarch, is being treated in hospital.
Now 88, there has been little news about the revered royal's health since he was admitted in May 2015.
There are strict laws which forbid criticism of Thailand's monarchy, and those who appear to insult the royal family face up to 15 years behind bars for each offence.
Other Western publications have also fallen foul of the rules. Last year, several New York Times articles mentioning the Thai monarchy were removed from copies sold in the country, with blank spaces left in their place.
Certain issues of The Economist have been banned for carrying sensitive stories about the palace.
A significant number of people have been arrested on 'lese majeste' charges for social media postings, but this does not necessarily equate to expressing their opinion on the royal family.
Tom Mulcair knows the knives are out and pressure is on.
The federal NDP leader faces a divided party, with some members calling for his departure while others stand behind him, as he heads into a convention this weekend in Edmonton.
"It's probably going to be the most important speech of my political career," the NDP leader told Chris Hall in an interview on CBC Radio's The House.
More than 1,500 delegates will review his performance after the party's disappointing third-place finish in the 2015 federal election.
Mulcair has been quiet about how much support he feels he needs to stay on as leader. According to the party constitution, anything less than 51 per cent of the secret ballots cast would trigger an automatic leadership race within the year.
"There's a reason I've been prudent about not giving a number," he said. "I know that tons of numbers have been put out there. The members are going to be pronouncing on Sunday and I'm going to respect their will."
'I've learned to become a much better listener'
Mulcair outlined three points he's hoping to make in his speech Sunday morning.
"I'm going to tell [members] how energized I feel, and how confident I feel with the depth of the experience and the expertise we have in every single riding," he said.
Mulcair says he will address how the party can continue to hold the governing Liberals to account.
"They mimicked a lot of our promises, but it wasn't there in their budget," Mulcair said.
He'll also examine what comes next for the party, saying that the NDP has "no option" but to come out of the convention united.
"We've always been that party that wants to remove inequality in our society, to create opportunities. What form is that going to take? We've got to chart ourselves a path forward for the next two, three years."
Mulcair was emphatic that he hopes to be the leader charting that path, if Sunday's vote goes his way. He added that the 2015 campaign taught him valuable lessons.
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"I have learned how to become a much better listener," he said. "It wasn't a criticism so much leveled at me, as much as it was a realization for me."
Mulcair open to taking a leap
One of the big topics of debate at the convention continues to be what role the Leap Manifesto may play in NDP policy.
Unveiled in September during the election campaign, the Leap Manifesto has supporters from labour unions and environmental organizations, but Mulcair has yet to endorse the document.
But if directed to do so by party members, Mulcair said he would support the will of the party.
He added it's important to discuss the ideas expressed within the manifesto, which include working towards a carbon-free economy by 2050 and instating a universal guaranteed income, even if the ideas might not work.
"I am thrilled, honoured and pleased that we're having this debate in the NDP," he said.
"Those ideas would never get discussed in the Liberal Party, they would never get discussed in the Conservative Party.
"That's why we talk about these big issues. Would I love to work towards a carbon-free economy by 2050? You bet. Do I think that's a good plan? You bet. But I also know that we live in the real world and we have to give answers for the next 30 years before we can get there."
Support for Alberta
Mulcair reiterated his strong support of the provincial NDP government in Alberta, pointing to Rachel Notley as an example for popular socialist politicians like U.S. presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders and U.K. Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn to emulate.
"If I were going to talk to you about a success for socialists, I'd talk to you about the success of the NDP getting elected here in Alberta," he said.
"Because as much as there are exciting ideas from Mr. Sanders and Mr. Corbyn, here in Alberta we've actually got a social democratic government."
Mulcair said Notley has been able to do "two things at the same time that people often found contradictory" wedding environmental goals with economic ones.
"They're saying we have to protect good jobs here in Alberta, that we have a gift of resources, but we have to do that responsibly.
"It's not a question of 'you can't have a pipe from here to there,' it's a question of 'are you adding value to your natural resources, are you doing everything you can to create those jobs in Canada, and once you've done that, what else can you do to meet those international [climate] obligations?'
"Rachel Notley's NDP government is always going to have my full support in that," he added.
When Ryan Seacrest said goodbye to fans of Fox's "American Idol" this week, he caused much speculation the show wasn't ending after all.
Seacrest, who hosted the singing competition for all of its 15 seasons, finished by uttering his famous phrase Thursday: "And one more time -- this is so tough -- we say to you from Hollywood, goodnight America."
Then he added mysteriously "for now."
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Seacrest, 41, took to Twitter Friday to explain.
"I didn't want to say goodbye last night," he wrote. "Thank you for 15 amazing seasons #IdolFinale."
"Idol" creator Simon Fuller has hinted the show may get a second life.
"There will no doubt be another format or refinement or elevation of the format," he told Billboard. "Now I can actually revamp it and come up with a new version and we can look back on 15 seasons and think of some legitimate ways to allow people to enjoy them again, maybe adding another dimension to it."
Fuller, 55, said that includes working with Pulse, a company that can create "a virtual pop star."
"I've spent a whole lot of time thinking about this," he continued. "I've been waiting for the technology to be good enough to make it happen. We have the digital rights for Elvis Presley and we're building a virtual reality show around him."
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The military leadership has intensified its military operations to rescue foreign and local hostages of the Abu Sayyaf Group in Sulu.
Col. Noel Detoyato, Armed Forces of the Philippines-Public Affairs Office chief, said as of yesterday, ground operations are continuing in the island province as well as in Basilan, where the bandits are believed to be keeping the hostages.
On Friday evening, the bandits released Italian former priest Rolando del Torchio, who was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in Dipolog City last October, following reported ransom payoff amounting to P29 million.
Ground operations are ongoing. We could not just disclose specific areas where these operations are being carried out, Detoyato said, referring to ongoing military and police efforts to rescue Canadians John Ridsdel, Robert Hall, Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad and Filipina Maritess Flor.
Unidentified gunmen snatched the four from the Samal Island resort in Davao del Norte last September.
The four subsequently ended up in the hands of the Abu Sayyaf in Sulu, who have been demanding P1 billion for each of the victims in exchange for their freedom.
The bandits on March 8 warned that something terrible will happen to the four if their demand is not met in a months time.
There were reports that separate efforts were launched to negotiate with the kidnappers.
However, talks failed after negotiators backed out due to unreasonable ransom demands by the bandit group.
We are taking this threat seriously and we are doing everything to resolve the problem, Western Mindanao Command (Westmincom) spokesman, Maj. Filemon Tan said.
Meanwhile, government troops encountered a group of Abu Sayyaf militants in the hinterlands of Tipo-Tipo, Basilan, leaving 22 soldiers wounded yesterday.
Westmincom spokesman Tan said the joint elements of the 44th Infantry Battalion and 4th Special Forces Battalion encountered about 120 members of the Abu Sayyaf at Sitio Bayoko, Barangay Baguindan.
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He said the firefight started at 7:55 a.m and lasted about an hour, leaving an undetermined number of Abu Sayyaf dead and wounded. With Roel Pareno
Vice President Jejomar Binay remains committed to fight for democracy and protect human rights especially of the poor Filipinos.
Binays camp made the statement yesterday in response to President Aquinos remarks that the Vice President is no longer the same person that he knew.
We find the Presidents statement in Makati last Friday unfortunate, United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) communications director Joey Salgado said.
Vice President Binays faith in democracy remains as strong as ever. His commitment to human rights and uplifting the lives of the poor emanates from the spirit of EDSA 1986, Salgado added.
Salgado criticized the President for speaking before a small group of opportunists instead of the real people of Makati who could share the real situation of the city.
In the few months that the Presidents allies have run Makati, the people have experienced deterioration in the delivery of services and the return of fixers at city hall, the UNA official said.
Binay: Poe, Duterte unfit for presidency
Binay maintained that Sen. Grace Poe is not qualified to become president as she lacks the experience in leading the country.
During a sortie in Tingloy, Batangas yesterday, Binay said Filipinos would regret voting for Poe, whom he referred to as the American girl.
First of all, one of the characteristics of a good leader is his or her love for the country, said Binay.
After saying in the last presidential debate that both of them are qualified for the presidency, Binay appeared to have changed his mind as he continued his attacks against Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.
Binay called Duterte a liar for flip-flopping on his statements in connection with extrajudicial killings.
Make up your mind, berdugong mamamatay tao, Binay told Duterte. The presidency is not for the unprincipled and the inconsistent. It is not for liars, braggarts and merciless killers.
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The Vice President issued the statement after the tough-talking mayor denied that he had committed extrajudicial killings, saying he was referring to those who died in bloody operations against syndicates.
Duterte also denied involvement in the Davao Death Squad and said it was a gimmick by his political rivals.
Binay reminded Duterte that he admitted being part of the death squad in an interview done by a local television program on May 24, 2015.
Killing people accused of violating the law is inhumane. This is not in accordance with the rule of God and the rule of law, Binay said.
We do not need a leader who disregards the sanctity of human life and whose only solution to the problem of poverty is to kill the poor, he added.
Last week, Duterte dislodged Binay in pre-electoral polls, with some pundits noting that the elections will be a two-way race between the Davao mayor and Sen. Grace Poe.
But Binays spokesman Rico Quicho said the issue of extrajudicial killings is a legitimate one that has to be addressed.
The Vice President made it clear that we should never put the decision of taking someones life in our hands, Quicho said.
Binays camp believes that the Vice President will win the elections by a wide margin despite a drop in recent surveys.
Quicho said Binay has a core network of supporters who are continuously growing as election day nears.
During Fridays proclamation rally of the local candidates of the National Unity Party and Lakas-CMD in Quezon, Binay expressed confidence that his organization and field work could win him the presidency with four million votes.
Just like when I ran for vice president (in 2010), at the end of the day, I think I would win by seven to 10 percent margin, maybe around four million votes, Binay said.
He said this is the reason why local candidates should stick with him.
You will not regret campaigning for me. If we liken it to a cockfight, all bets are on us, he said.
Meanwhile, Binay paid tribute to modern-day Filipino heroes as the country commemorated Araw ng Kagitingan (Day of Valor) yesterday.
Binay urged Filipinos to honor those who have shown courage and are continuously serving the country in their own ways.
He cited the overseas Filipino workers, farmers and police officers who are willing to sacrifice their lives for the country. With Helen Flores
Chadians voted Sunday in an election likely to see President Idriss Deby extend his 26-year rule in a country increasingly on the frontline of the global war on terror. Deby, who took office in a 1990 military coup, faces 12 challengers but is widely expected to win a fifth term after consolidating his grip on power in the central African nation. Polling stations opened shortly after 7:00 am (0600 GMT) and by mid-morning were seeing a large turnout. But there were no reports of trouble, even in an opposition stronghold in N'Djamena. At a polling station in the capital, men and women waited patiently in separate queues to cast their ballots, many with their biometric voting card in hand, an AFP correspondent said. "The big day has arrived. Chad must come out of these elections stronger," said Deby after casting his ballot. "The political class must accept the vote's results, which are the voice of the people." Security forces were out in force for the election, which comes after Chad was hit by a series of suicide attacks. Polls were to close at 6:00 pm (1700 GMT) and results may not be released for two weeks. The voters look set to hand another mandate to Deby, whose election resources far exceed those of his challengers in a nation classified by the UN as one of the five poorest in the world. Under his leadership, once unstable Chad has become both an oil producer and key player on the global anti-jihadist frontline, winning new strategic influence. But despite a wealth of new oil resources since 2003, half of the population of 13 million lives below the poverty line and seven out of 10 people cannot read or write. "We want to fix the country. Everyone is hoping for change," voter Ida Nouba-Asra told AFP. "We are suffering: no drinking water, no homes, no work." The 63-year-old Deby is facing unprecedented dissent at home. Anger at the government has run high in recent months, prompting the authorities to crack down on protests and throw activist leaders in jail. Just three days before the election, police fired live rounds and tear gas to disperse several hundred protesters angered by plans to hand six-month jail terms to five anti-government activist leaders. - Over 100 dialects - Chad is also facing an unprecedented security threat. It was hit by two jihadist attacks in the capital last year, while facing a constant threat of suicide attacks and raids. To address the threats, Deby has tightened security while maintaining a strong presence in a regional force fighting the Nigeria-based Boko Haram Islamist group. The country has scores of ethnic groups that speak more than 100 languages, and some of its conflicts have been blamed on divisions between Muslims, who make up 53 percent of the population, and Christians and animists. Those tensions have also been fuelled by Deby handing top jobs to members of his Zaghawa ethnic group, whose members also largely head the country's feared army. Ethnic resentment may be behind protests that erupted in February over the gang rape of a young woman, allegedly committed by the sons of several leading army commanders and officials. Two youngsters were killed when security forces cracked down on the demonstrations. One of Deby's challengers, Mahamat Yesko Brahim -- the father of the rape victim -- stood down in favour of the president at the last minute. The most prominent of Deby's challengers is Saleh Kebzabo, a Muslim from southwestern Mayo Kebbi province who first stood against him in 1996 and who heads the National Union for Development and Renewal. Another high-profile runner is former premier Joseph Djimrangar Dadnadji, a Christian and one-time Deby ally. "In the face of these accumulating challenges, Chadian authorities must avoid the politics of religious or geographic exclusion," the International Crisis Group said in March. "The greatest threat to stability in Chad in the long-term... (is) a national political crisis."
By Amanda Becker WASHINGTON - Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are facing off in a U.S. presidential nominating contest in Wyoming on Saturday, as the candidates gear up for a crucial match-up in New York. Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, is fresh off a string of recent wins and looking to continue chipping away at Clinton's sizeable lead in the number of delegates needed to secure the party's nomination. Just 14 Democratic delegates are up for grabs in Wyoming - fewer than any other state - and even a commanding win by Sanders there would do little to help him close the gap. Clinton currently has more than half of the 2,383 delegates needed to win the nomination. Sanders trails her by 250 pledged delegates, those awarded proportionate to the popular vote in the state nominating contests. Clinton's lead widens when superdelegates, Democratic leaders who can decide whom to support at the party's July convention, are included in the tallies. Clinton and Sanders have spent much of the past week in New York, which holds its contest on April 19 and where a total of 291 delegates are up for grabs. Clinton, a former secretary of state, considers New York her home turf. She represented the state as a U.S. senator and has headquartered her campaign in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Sanders has reminded voters he was born and raised in Brooklyn. Recent polls have shown Clinton more than 10 points ahead in the state. Tension between the two candidates flared earlier this week in a party race that has typically focused on policies and not personal attacks. After a back-and-forth about who was most qualified to be president, Clinton and Sanders dialed back their criticism of one another on Friday. "I think this has all been pretty silly," Clinton told reporters at a campaign stop in Buffalo, in upstate New York. "He made his comments and there was no basis for them. It was completely a misrepresentation, and he seemed to take them back today." In Wyoming's Republican contest last month, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas beat New York billionaire Donald Trump, the party's front-runner. Cruz is trying to block Trump from receiving enough delegates to win the nomination outright, which would lead to a contested convention in July. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that a third of Trump's Republican supporters could consider abandoning the party's candidate if Trump is denied the nomination at a contested convention. (Reporting by Amanda Becker; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Its been a little more than two weeks since North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory signed House Bill 2 (HB2), which repealed new anti-discrimination ordinances that extended rights and protections to members of the LGBT community. In response, major companies, cities, and entire stateseveryone from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to Marriott's CEO Arne Sorensonhave gone to great lengths to express their disdain for the anti-LGBT act.
On March 29, Cuomo joined West Palm Beach, Seattle, and San Francisco (the latter are known as being two of America's best cities for gay-friendly travel) in banning government travel to North Carolina. We believe that all peopleregardless of their gender identity or sexual orientationdeserve the same rights and protections under the law, said Cuomo in a recent press release.
While vetoing publicly funded, government travel may not have a tremendous economic impact on the spurned southern state, the huge backlash from major businesses can. And leisure tourism, to be sure, will suffer from the discriminatory act.
Its not the first time a city passed an anti-LGBT law and suffered the consequences. In March of last year, Indiana passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA): a law that targeted the LGBT community. Chris Gahl, the vice president of Indianapolis convention and visitors association, spoke with Travel + Leisure about the tremendous impact RFRA had on the state capital.
Indianapolis has lost more than $60 million in future convention business as a result of [the] controversy, based on meeting planner feedback, Gahl said. Even though the bill was repealed in a weekthanks largely to cancelled conventions and the NCAAs threat to move the Mens Final Fourthe city continued to experience tremors from the controversy. On the leisure side, [there were] more than 1,000 cancelled trips that spring and summer, tied directly to RFRA," Gahl said.
North Carolina, which has not responded to the retaliation nearly as swiftly as Indiana, no doubt will experience the same repercussions. Shelly Green, the president and CEO of Durhams Convention and Visitors Bureau, anticipates that the cityand the state at largewill have more than just a tarnished reputation in the aftermath.
Story continues
Cancelled meetingseven a drop in attendance as low as 10 percent, Green explainedcould affect associations and local businesses. We [also] have some high visibility festivals coming up in the next few weeks, where individuals have made calls to boycott, she said, referring to events like Moogfest, an art, tech, and music festival running May 19 through 22. There are also the statewide Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and Pride Parade in the summer and fall, respectively.
Durham cited the citys "long history of embracing diversity and inclusivity [as a] welcoming, LGBTQ-friendly community," as well as the injury to local businesses, when it issued an official statement opposing HB2 on March 30. The sentiment is shared by other North Carolina cities.
Major players in the tourism industrynot including tourists themselvesalso are making their politics known. Airbnb, Lyft, Uber, Choice Hotels, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Hotels & Resorts, Orbitz, American Airlines, and Marriott International all have demanded that North Carolina's General Assembly repeal HB2.
Marriotts CEO, Arne Sorenson, shared his commentary with CNBC. [HB2] does not reflect our values or a basic principle that helps drive new jobs and economic growtheveryone deserves to be welcome. Sorenson added that Marriott is joining other American businesses to endorse the Equality Act, which would set uniform, federal protections that include sexual orientation and gender identity.
Every day that North Carolinas state policy makers stand by HB2 is a guarantee that the Tar Heel state's economy, tourism industry, and character could be irreparably damaged. As Indianapolisand the state of Indianaknow too well, even rescinding the bill may be too little too late, especially for LGBT travelers.
UPDATE: Celebrities including Ringo Starr and Bruce Springsteen have cancelled performances in North Carolina to protest the anti-LGBT legislation. All of the upcoming Cirque du Soleil shows in Greensboro, Charlotte, and Raleigh have been called off in protest. On April 18, Pearl Jam wrote a handwritten note boycotting North Carolina and cancelling their upcoming concert. PayPal and Deutsche Bank have terminated plans to expand in North Carolina, resulting in the loss of at least 650 jobs.
Cyndi Lauper, meanwhile, has decided to stick to the schedule. Her June 4 concert in Raleigh will not be nixed. Instead, Lauper is transforming the performance into an assembly to fight HB2. "I will be donating all of the profits from the show," Lauper wrote on her website, noting that her manager and agent would, too, "to build public support to repeal HB2."
Melanie Lieberman is the Assistant Digital Editor at Travel + Leisure. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @melanietaryn.
AFP News
Pro-Russian authorities on Saturday urged residents in the southern Kherson region, which Moscow claims to have annexed, to leave the main city "immediately" in the face of Kyiv's advancing counter-offensive. It comes as President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had launched 36 rockets overnight in a "massive attack" on Ukraine, following reported strikes on energy infrastructure that resulted in power outages across the country. And Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida became the latest world leader to reproach Moscow for its talk of using nuclear weapons. Kyiv's forces have been advancing along the west bank of the Dnipro river, towards the Kherson region's eponymous main city. Kherson was the first major city to fall to Moscow's troops, and retaking it would be a major prize in Ukraine's counter-offensive. In recent days, Russia has been moving residents in the region -- which Moscow claims to have annexed in September -- east to Russia, in efforts Kyiv has denounced as "deportations". "Due to the tense situation on the front, the increased danger of mass shelling of the city and the threat of terrorist attacks, all civilians must immediately leave the city and cross to the left bank" of the Dnipro river, the region's pro-Russian authorities announced on social media. A Moscow-installed official in Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, told Russian news agency Interfax on Saturday that around 25,000 people had made the crossing. Sergiy Khlan, the Ukrainian deputy head of the Kherson region, said Russians were removing property and documents from banks and the passport office as they withdrew. Ukraine's general staff said Moscow's forces had abandoned two more settlements in Kherson and were evacuating medical personnel from a third, accusing them of looting local civilians. - A 'serious threat' - Earlier Saturday, Japan's Kishida denounced Moscow's comments regarding the possible use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict. "Russia's act of threatening the use of nuclear weapons is a serious threat to the peace and security of the international community and absolutely unacceptable," he said. The 77-year period of no nuclear weapons use "must not be ended", said Kishida, speaking in Australia. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Putin has made several thinly veiled threats about his willingness to deploy tactical nuclear weapons. Earlier this month, the European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned that the Russian army would be "annihilated" if Russia launched such an attack. Washington has also warned Moscow of "catastrophic" consequences should they use such weapons. Japan is the only country ever to have been hit with nuclear weapons: the US atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, which killed 140,000 people, and the second US bomb on Nagasaki, three days later, which killed 74,000 people. - 'Afraid for our lives' - At a train station in the town of Dzhankoy in the north of Crimea, a peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, Kherson residents were boarding a train for southern Russia, an AFP reporter saw Friday. "We are leaving Kherson because heavy shelling started there, we are afraid for our lives," said Valentina Yelkina, a pensioner travelling with her daughter. More than a million households in Ukraine have been left without electricity following Russian strikes on energy facilities across the country, the deputy head of the Ukrainian presidency Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on Saturday. Fresh Russian strikes targeted energy infrastructure in Ukraine's west, the national operator said earlier, with officials in several regions of the war-scarred country reporting power outages as winter approaches. Russians "carried out another missile attack on energy facilities of the main networks of Ukraine's western regions", Ukraine's energy operator Ukrenergo said on social media. "These are vile strikes on critical objects," said Zelensky. "The world can and must stop this terror." Power outages were reported in other parts of the country and local officials repeated calls to reduce energy use. Some parts of Ukraine have already cut their electricity use by up to 20 percent, according to Ukrenergo. "Saturday in Ukraine starts with a barrage of Russian missiles aimed at critical civilian infrastructure," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter. He once again urged Kyiv's allies to hasten the delivery of air defence systems. In the Russian Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, at least two civilians were killed in strikes on Saturday, according to the local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov. Nearly 15,000 people were left without electricity, he added. Russia last week reported a "considerable increase" in Ukrainian fire into its territory, saying attacks had largely concentrated on Belgorod region and neighbouring regions of Bryansk and Kursk. bur-imm/jj/ah
BEIJING (Reuters) - Companies from China's violence-prone far western region of Xinjiang signed deals worth about $2 billion with Pakistan this week during a visit to Pakistan by Xinjiang's top official, who sought to cement ties with an important security partner. Pakistan last year agreed energy and infrastructure projects worth $46 billion with China to set up a so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, in a boost to Pakistan's crumbling infrastructure and energy sector. In return, China will get a free trade zone in Pakistan's Gwadar port and access to the Arabian Sea. New Pakistani roads will open up routes for Chinese goods into Europe and the Middle East from landlocked Xinjiang, which borders Pakistan. During a four-day visit to Pakistan, Xinjiang's Communist Party chief Zhang Chunxian met Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, visited Islamabad, Karachi and Gwadar, the official Xinjiang Daily said on Friday. "China and Pakistan have a deep friendship, are good neighbors, friends, brothers and partners," the newspaper cited Zhang as saying. "On this trip, I have deeply felt this friendship and the atmosphere surrounding the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor." The $2 billion in agreements covered infrastructure, solar power and logistics, among other projects, signed by companies from Xinjiang with their Pakistan counterparts, the newspaper said, without giving details. China and Pakistan call each other "all-weather friends" and their ties have been underpinned by long-standing wariness of their common neighbor, India, and a desire to hedge against U.S. influence in the region. But China has also long urged Pakistan to weed out what it says are militants from Xinjiang, who are holed up in lawless ethnic Pashtun lands on the Pakistan-Afghan border, home to a mix of groups, including the Taliban and al Qaeda. While meeting Sharif, the two countries agreed to continue working together to fight terrorism, strengthen border controls, maintain regional peace and stability and ensure the economic corridor projects are protected, the newspaper said. Zhang also met Pakistan's military on the trip, it added, without elaborating. Hundreds of people have been killed in unrest in Xinjiang in the last few years. Exiles and rights groups say Chinese controls on the religion and culture of the Muslim Uighur people who call Xinjiang home is largely behind the violence, rather than any well-organized militant groups. China denies any rights abuses in Xinjiang and says its people are free to practice Islam. Zhang visited a mosque in Islamabad, where he "got a deep understanding of Pakistan's religious affairs management", the Xinjiang Daily added. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)
ATHENS (Reuters) - Cyprus-based lender RCB said on Monday it had never provided unsecured loans, in a reference to a report by Britain's Guardian newspaper of its alleged role in helping people close to Vladimir Putin amass fortunes.
Reuters could not independently confirm the allegations, which RCB said were 'unfounded' and 'duly refuted as untrue'.
In another statement sent to Reuters, the Cyprus Central Bank said it was 'evaluating' the information for possible links to the Cypriot banking system. It would take appropriate action if necessary, it said, without elaborating.
"RCB Bank, as a principal (sic), did not and does not provide unsecured loans," RCB bank, which is affiliated with the Russian state-owned bank VTB and regulated by the Central Bank of Cyprus, said in a statement emailed to Reuters.
"The Bank always acts in a transparent manner and all information about its activities is available to the relevant Cypriot and European authorities."
The Guardian newspaper on Sunday alleged that RCB and other banks had extended "enormous unsecured loans" to entities linked to close Putin acquaintances.
It followed a massive leak of documents from a Panamanian law firm allegedly detailing ways in which hundreds of thousands of clients had evaded tax and laundered money spanning a period of almost 40 years.
The Guardian said the documents showed a network of secret offshore deals and loans worth $2 billion led to close friends of the Russian president.
Cyprus has close business ties with Russia. Russian businesses bore the brunt of a 'bail-in' on deposits that were converted to equity to recapitalise the country's largest lender, Bank of Cyprus in 2013.
A second bank, Laiki, was wound down.
RCB and another Cypriot systemic bank, Hellenic, were never considered for a bail-in because they had none of the heavy exposure the other two banks had to Greece's debt crisis.
(Reporting by Michele Kambas; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
By Marco Aquino and Caroline Stauffer LIMA (Reuters) - Keiko Fujimori won the first round of Peru's presidential election on Sunday, though the race to be her opponent in the June run-off was locked in a virtual tie between two contenders, three exit polls showed. Ipsos gave Fujimori 37.8 percent of valid votes, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski 20.9 percent, and Veronika Mendoza 20.3 percent. GfK had similar results, while CPI gave Kuczynski a slightly better advantage, with 19.7 percent to Mendoza's 18.8 percent. Fujimori, the daughter of imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori, would have needed 50 percent for an outright win but was held back by critical voters who have not forgiven the authoritarian rule of her father. Support for the U.S.-educated former congresswoman slipped after tens of thousands protested against her on April 5, 24 years after the elder Fujimori shut Congress with the support of the army. She may struggle to win a runoff vote. Peruvians voted for President Ollanta Humala's successor with their country of 30 million on track to become the world's No. 2 copper producer. However, rising crime is a top concern for voters and many question why poverty persists with such vast mineral wealth. Polls closed at 4p.m. (2100 GMT) Lima time. Partial results, about 20 percent or 30 percent of votes, will be given at 9 p.m. (0200 GMT) and the electoral body says it will finish counting on Monday. A runoff between Kuczynski, a 77-year-old former World Bank economist, and Fujimori would likely ensure Peru's free-market economic model remains intact. Mendoza's late surge in opinion polls in recent weeks has spooked markets. Fujimori has promised to build high-altitude prisons in the Andes to isolate dangerous criminals, and said she would drive economic growth forward at the end of a decade-long mining boom by tapping a rainy day fund and issuing new debt to fund badly needed infrastructure. Kuczynski's supporters danced in the streets with his guinea pig mascot after exit polls were reported. However, in previous elections early results have underrepresented rural areas, where Mendoza and Fujimori have stronger support. SECOND ROUND The most recent Ipsos poll showed Kuczynski would beat Fujimori in a second-round election by seven points, while Mendoza was seen in a statistical tie with her. Fifty-one percent of Peruvians polled told Ipsos they would "definitely not" vote for her. Kuczynski's economic adviser, Alfredo Thorne, said that exit polls showed Kuczynski had stronger support in rural Peru than in 2011, when he struggled to connect with voters outside of Lima during his first presidential bid. Mendoza, who wants to scrap Peru's 1993 constitution and limit mining, thanked her supporters from her home city of Cuzco, once the capital of the Incan empire. "We've shown that we can do politics differently!" she said. Fujimori has vowed to preserve democracy and extend 25 years of free-market policies. Her father, a right-wing populist who is serving a 25-year prison term for human rights abuses and corruption during his 1990-2000 rule, is fondly remembered by some for building rural schools and hospitals and implementing neo-liberal reforms that remain in place. Keiko Fujimori famously became Peru's first lady at 19 when her parents divorced. She says her father is innocent and should be absolved by the courts but has promised not to use her political power to free him from jail or repeat his authoritarian tendencies. "I voted for Keiko because she's not to blame for what her father did," said 41-year-old Carlos Zevallos. "Crimes aren't inherited." The elder Fujimori said his hard-line measures were necessary to defeat the Maoist-inspired Shining Path insurgency. In a reminder of that bloody conflict, rebels presumed to be remnants of the Shining Path on Saturday ambushed soldiers sent to safeguard ballots, leaving at least six dead, authorities said. The head of the Organization of American States mission to Peru, Sergio Abreu, said there had been some isolated delays in voting but that Sunday's election had otherwise been calm. (Additional reporting by Mitra Taj and Teresa Cespedes; Editing by Mary Milliken, Jonathan Oatis and Nick Zieminski)
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Cristina Fernandez, who stepped down as president of Argentina in December after eight years in office, has been charged by a prosecutor with money laundering, local media reported on Saturday. The decision follows testimony on Friday by businessman Leonardo Farina, who in a plea bargain implicated Fernandez and her late husband and former President Nestor Kirchner in a case related to money laundering and embezzling funds earmarked for public works. Julio De Vido, a longtime Fernandez and Kirchner ally and former minister, was also charged, local newspapers Clarin and La Nacion reported, citing judicial sources. Reuters could not immediately confirm the charges with the prosecutor's office. Last Tuesday, another Fernandez ally, businessman Lazaro Baez, was arrested for questioning as part of the same investigation. Fernandez, 63, is due to answer questions in court on Wednesday over a separate probe into the sale of U.S. dollar futures contracts at below-market rates by the central bank during her administration. Fernandez, a leftist leader from the Peronist party, was barred constitutionally from seeking a third consecutive term. Opposition candidate Mauricio Macri won the November election, ending more than a decade of Peronist rule. (Reporting by Rosalba O'Brien and Jorge Otaola; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Mary Milliken)
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany is considering scrapping tax benefits for companies that do business with tax havens abroad as a reaction to the Panama Papers, Der Spiegel magazine reported on Friday. Banking watchdogs across Europe have begun checking whether lenders have ties to the massive document leak from Panama that showed how offshore companies are used to stash clients' wealth. Four decades of documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which specialises in setting up offshore companies, showed widespread use of those instruments by global banks and triggered investigations across the world. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has advised his staff to make proposals on how the government could financially punish firms that do business with tax havens via offshore companies, Der Spiegel reported. One idea was to scrap tax incentives for such companies, it said, adding the ministry hoped firms would then raise the pressure on ruling politicians abroad to change tax policy. A spokeswoman for the Finance Ministry declined to comment on the magazine report, but she said Berlin was working on an action plan for more transparency in this context. Schaeuble would present details of this plan at the IMF/World Bank meeting in Washington next week, she added. (Reporting by Gernot Heller and Michael Nienaber; Editing by Keith Weir)
By Caroline Stauffer and Mitra Taj LIMA (Reuters) - The race for second place in the first round of Peru's presidential election on Sunday was still wide open on Friday, with polls split over who would earn the chance to face long-time front-runner Keiko Fujimori in an expected run-off. Peru's stock market closed 4 percent higher after Wall Street favorite Pedro Pablo Kuczynski was seen in second place with 20.8 percent of valid votes, ahead of leftist Veronika Mendoza with 16.5 percent, according to a survey by GfK. Polls by Ipsos and Datum showed the two second place contestants within one point of each other, though Mendoza's momentum appears to have slowed. "Veronika hasn't increased voters so much in recent days. She rose a lot since March but less recently," Urpi Torrado, of pollster Datum, told foreign reporters at a news conference. Fujimori, the daughter of jailed former president Alberto Fujimori, was still seen about 10 points short of the 50 percent of votes needed to win outright. Her support has slipped since tens of thousands protested against her on Tuesday. A Fujimori-Kuczynski run-off in June would likely ensure Peru's free-market model of the last quarter century prevails in the top metals producer, no matter the winner. Mendoza's surprise surge in recent weeks has spooked markets as she has swept up scores of undecided voters with promises of radically transforming the country's mining-dependent economy. Kuczynski, a 77-year-old son of European immigrants who had struggled to gain traction with poor rural voters in the last election, has ramped up efforts to portray Mendoza as a threat to Peru's long stretch of economic growth. A video called "24 Hours to Save Peru" launched on YouTube urged voters to rally behind Kuczynski to avoid a "disastrous second round" that would force Peruvians to choose between Fujimori and "a communist model that would destroy Peru." Mendoza's supporters on social media dismissed the attack as desperate fear mongering. Mendoza, dressed in red, chose Lima's historic May 2 Plaza to end her campaign, praising the history of union and human rights protests that had taken place there. "We aren't here to make adjustments, patches, or to apply makeup, we want a real transformation," she told supporters in a possible jab at outgoing President Ollanta Humala, a former leftist who governed more moderately than expected. Mendoza would like Peru to become less reliant on mining and wants to curb exports of oil and natural gas to prioritize domestic demand. (Additional reporting by Teresa Cespedes and Ursula Scollo; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Andrew Hay)
By Francois Murphy and Alexandra Schwarz-Goerlich VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria's financial markets regulator FMA on Sunday cut the nominal value of "bad bank" Heta Asset Resolution's [HAABI.UL] senior bonds by more than half, highlighting the long struggle creditors face for repayment if a settlement is not reached. The FMA, which is overseeing the wind-down of Heta, on Sunday announced measures including the bail-in, or haircut, of 54 percent, the extension of bonds' maturities to 2023 and the cancellation of coupon payments as of March of last year. The announcement is the latest chapter in a standoff between the province of Carinthia and Heta's creditors, many of which insist on repayment in full because their bonds were guaranteed by Carinthia, which could push the province into insolvency. Carinthia guaranteed the bonds of local lender Hypo Alpe Adria before it collapsed and Heta was formed to wind it down. Carinthia says it cannot afford to fully honour the remaining guarantees, which the FMA put at 11.1 billion euros (9 billion). Creditors are likely to sue Carinthia to recover the difference between what is paid out to them under Heta's wind-down and their bonds' full face value. The FMA put that difference at 6.4 billion euros, roughly three times the annual budget of Carinthia, a southern province of about 560,000 people that borders Italy and Slovenia and was long the stronghold of far-right politician Joerg Haider. The haircut's size is based on the amount the FMA expects will be recovered from the sale of Heta's assets by 2020. It had said the estimate would be conservative to ensure that, if it is wide of the mark, there is extra revenue to be shared out. Only by the end of 2023 will it be possible to pay out all funds owed, the FMA said, partly in anticipation of many court cases, meaning creditors face a wait of seven years for their repayment of 46 percent of senior bonds' face value. Carinthia offered to buy back the bonds it guaranteed, with loans from the Austrian government, for 75 percent of senior bonds' face value, plus a last-minute sweetener by the Austrian government that brought the offer to around 82 percent. Too few creditors accepted the offer when it expired last month, and the question is now whether a compromise can be found or whether the dispute will be settled in court. "An out-of-court agreement on dissolving Carinthia's guarantees is still the best solution," Austria's Finance Ministry said in a statement. "For that to happen, the creditors must now act and make a concrete proposal." On Sunday, Germany's insurers said an amicable agreement over debt repayment with Heta was still possible. "However, it must be clear that any new offer (by the Austrians) must look significantly better," said Klaus Wiener, chief economist of German insurance trade body GDV said. Germany's insurers remained of the view that full repayment of debt to creditors was needed, he said in a statement. Austrian newspaper Der Standard reported this weekend that representatives of Carinthia and creditors would meet in London on Tuesday to try to find a solution. A spokeswoman for an alliance of creditor groups that says it controls Heta bonds with a face value of more than 5 billion euros said it would study the FMA's decision. Carinthia said it would do the same and was prepared for any consequences. ($1 = 0.8773 euros) (Additional reporting by Kirsti Knolle in Vienna and Jonathan Gould in Frankfurt; Editing by Ros Russell)
Inside the sleepy resort town of Latakia in Syria, it's very hard to believe that just a few hundred kilometres away the war is raging.
The muezzins are still calling for prayer and people go around their daily shopping.
Local politicians' posters hang around the city, urging Syrians to vote for them in the upcoming parliamentary elections on 13 April.
Latakia, with its beautiful sandy beaches and warm waves of the Mediterranean, used to be the favourite summer resort for the Syrian political elite.
Now it is Bashar al Assad's stronghold, where taxi drivers call him "father".
The main reminders of the conflict here are road checkpoints manned by local security forces - Mukhabarat.
On one of these checkpoints, Sky News met 18-year-old Hamody al Salem and 26-year-old Maher Lai.
They agreed to show us the abandoned school where Hafez al Assad - Bashar al Assad's father - used to study.
The school is situated in the centre of the city. There is a memorial plate inside the school and a monument of Hafez al Assad nearby to commemorate the honourable student.
During the improvised tour of the school, the younger guard, Hamody, told us his story.
He grew up in Raqqa and is the only son in his family.
He was washing the dishes at a cafe there, until he was captured by Islamic State - also known as Daesh - in 2014.
Hamody was kept prisoner for one-and-a-half years, along with four other Syrians.
"I don't know why Daesh captured me," he said.
"They beat me up every day. It was horrible to be their prisoner."
According to Hamody, one night the four prisoners stabbed their guard and escaped through a window.
Two of them were shot in the pursuit, but Hamody managed to run away and make it to Latakia.
According to an unwritten rule, Hamody could have avoided serving in the army as he is the only son in his family.
However, after his imprisonment, he decided to fight against IS and volunteered for Mukhabarat.
"We are not paid much, only 50 dollars per month. It is hardly enough for anything," said another secret services employee, who asked that he not be named.
"However, fighting Daesh gives us stronger motivation than money can ever give."
By Arshad Mohammed and James Mackenzie KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that Afghanistan's national unity government could continue beyond September, a step that could irk the opposition even as he attempts to avert a brewing political crisis. Kerry's unannounced visit to Kabul was intended to demonstrate support for the national unity government headed by President Ashraf Ghani, victor of the disputed election of 2014 and his runner up Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. The visit comes at a difficult moment for Afghanistan, with Ghani's government weakened by infighting between rivals, the economy sinking and the resurgent Taliban stronger than at any time since they were toppled from power in late 2001. Underlining the precarious security situation, at least two explosions, apparently from rockets, hit the diplomatic zone of the capital shortly after Kerry's visit ended and his plane was preparing to take off from Bagram airport outside the city. Kerry repeated an offer of peace talks with the Taliban and called on Afghanistan's fractious politicians to work together. "Democracy requires credible institutions," he said. "Even more than that, it requires a willingness of people from different political and ethnic and geographic factions to be able to come together and work for a common good." Under the national unity deal, a loya jirga, or special assembly, was expected to be held to amend the constitution within two years of the September 2014 election, potentially allowing Abdullah to take the post of prime minister. The approach of September's end of the two-year period has helped fuel growing political tension, with opposition politicians close to former President Hamid Karzai insisting that the unity agreement must be subject to broad consultation. However Kerry said the agreement was valid for the full term of the government, suggesting that the U.S. believes it can continue even without a new constitutional deal. "Let me make this very, very clear because I brokered the agreement There is no end to this agreement at the end of two years, or in six months from now," Kerry told a joint news conference with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. "This is an agreement for a unity government the duration of which is five years," he said. TROOP WITHDRAWAL The political difficulties facing Ghani have been racheted up by the deteriorating security situation, with NATO officials estimating that government forces have full control over no more than 70 percent of the country. U.S. forces in Afghanistan are due to be almost halved to 5,500 from the current 9,800 by the start of 2017, and the new commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, is conducting a review of security before making his recommendations to Washington some time in June. Kerry offered no hint on whether the timetable may change, saying only that President Barack Obama would make his decision on the size of the force after listening to what commanders on the ground had to say. With Afghanistan's shattered economy still on its knees and struggling with endemic corruption, Kerry said it was crucial for the country to secure international aid. "It is essential for these next week's and months for Afghanistan to show how that money is well spent and how the purpose of Afghanistan and the unity is going to earn the support and respect of the rest of the world," he said. In Warsaw in July, the NATO Western security alliance is expected to decide how to fund Afghanistan's security forces in the coming years and donor nations will gather in Brussels in October to make civilian aid pledges to Afghanistan. Kerry said U.S. and Afghan officials needed "to make certain that we use the time between now and the meeting in Warsaw and the meeting in Brussels to make sure that we are putting Afghanistan's best foot forward". Noting the dates, Andrew Wilder, an Afghanistan expert at the United States Institute for Peace think tank, said: "The last thing we need is a big political crisis calling into question the legitimacy of the national unity government in September". Ghani received a welcome boost on Saturday, when lawmakers confirmed a new interior minister and attorney general, two posts key to confronting the Taliban's growing insurgency and combating endemic corruption. (Editing by Paul Tait)
North Korea has said it has successfully tested an engine designed for an inter-continental ballistic missile that would "guarantee" an eventual nuclear strike on the US mainland.
It is the latest in a series of claims by Pyongyang of breakthroughs in both its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.
Experts have treated a number of the claims with scepticism, suggesting the North Korean leadership is attempting to talk up its achievements ahead of a showcase ruling party congress next month.
According to the North's official KCNA news agency, the ground engine test was ordered and personally monitored by leader Kim Jong-Un.
As soon as Kim flagged off the test at the Sohae Space Centre "the engine spewed out huge flames with deafening boom", KCNA said.
"The great success... provided a firm guarantee for mounting another form of nuclear attack upon the US imperialists and other hostile forces," Kim was quoted as saying.
Now North Korea "can tip new type inter-continental ballistic rockets with more powerful nuclear warheads and keep any cesspool of evils in the earth including the US mainland within our striking range", he added.
Military tensions on the divided Korean peninsula have been rising since the North conducted its fourth nuclear test in January, and a long-range rocket a month later that was seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.
The UN Security Council responded with its toughest sanctions to date over the North's nuclear programme, and Pyongyang accused Seoul and Washington of spearheading the sanctions drive in New York.
In recent weeks, state media has carried repeated threats of pre-emptive nuclear strikes against both the South and the US mainland.
By Denis Dyomkin and Nailia Bagirova BAKU (Reuters) - Azerbaijan and Armenian-backed separatists said on Friday they had struck a temporary deal to allow each side to safely search for the bodies of their soldiers killed in clashes over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The warring parties agreed a ceasefire on Tuesday - with Russian help - after four days of shelling and artillery strikes which killed dozens. The truce has largely held, though both sides have reported some violations. The violence prompted fears of an all out war in the strategically-important South Caucasus through which Caspian Sea oil and gas is exported to world markets bypassing Russia. On Friday, the Azeri defence ministry and the Nagorno-Karabakh defence ministry said they had sealed a deal to ensure there were no violations for a five-hour period later in the day to allow both sides to search for their dead. An official at the Armenian defence ministry used social media to post the names and photographs of 44 separatist soldiers who he said were killed in the clashes since April 2. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was on Friday in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to hold talks with Ilham Aliyev, the Azeri president, aimed at resuming diplomatic efforts to resolve the territorial dispute. "Russia, no less than Azerbaijan and Armenia, has an interest in there being peace in this region, our region," Medvedev said. "The ceasefire agreement is the foundation for unfreezing talks between Baku and Yerevan." Any progress towards a permanent settlement of the dispute is likely to be halting. Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous enclave within Azerbaijan's borders, populated mainly by ethnic Armenians who reject Azerbaijan's rule. With support from Armenia they fought a war in the early 1990s to establish de facto control over the territory. The fighting this week was the most intense since a 1994 ceasefire that stopped the conflict but did not resolve the underlying dispute. Azerbaijan says the only outcome of negotiations it will accept is the restoration of its control over Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts that are held by the separatists, while the Armenians say they will never agree to Nagorno-Karabakh being under Baku's control. Medvedev's visit to Azerbaijan, a day after he was in the Armenian capital for talks, showed Moscow was staking out a lead role in mediating in the conflict. Russia's active diplomacy overshadowed the United States, which has extensive interests in the South Caucasus region that includes Azerbaijan and Armenia. (Reporting by Nailia Bagirova and Denis Dyomkin in BAKU and Hasmik Mkrtchyan; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Christian Lowe)
By Samia Nakhoul CAIRO (Reuters)- - As the Syria peace talks resume next week, President Bashar al-Assad, backed militarily by Iran and Russia, shows no willingness to compromise, much less step aside to allow a transition Western powers claim is the solution to the conflict. Threatened by rebel advances last year, Assad is now pumped up with confidence after Russian air strikes reversed the tide and enabled his army to recover lost ground from Sunni insurgents as well as the jihadis of Islamic State. While Syria experts doubt he can recapture the whole country without an unlikely full-scale ground intervention by Russia and Iran, they also doubt President Vladimir Putin will force him out - unless there is a clear path to stability, which could take years. Instead, Russias dramatic military intervention last September -- after five years of inconclusive fighting between Assad and fragmented rebel groups mostly from Syrias Sunni majority -- has tilted the balance of power in his favour and given him the upper hand at the talks in Geneva. The main target of the Russian air force bombardment was mainstream and Islamist forces that launched an offensive last summer. Only recently have Russia and Syrian forces taken the fight to Islamic State, notably by recapturing Palmyra, the Graeco-Roman city the jihadis overran last year. The Russian campaign, backed by Irans Revolutionary Guards and Shiite militia such as Lebanons Hezbollah, has for now outmatched the rebels, including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and units supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and the United States. REBELS LOSE MOMENTUM Dealing with those groups rather than Islamic State seemed the main aim of Moscow's intervention, analysts say. "The Russian intervention fundamentally reshaped the Syrian conflict," says Kheder Khaddour from the Carnegie Middle East Center. "The momentum of the rebels does not exist any more." Putin, diplomats say, weakened the opposition to coax it into accepting a settlement on Russian and Syrian terms. That does not mean the "transitional authority" sought by the U.S. and its allies, but a government expanded to include elements of the opposition, with Assad at its head for the immediate future. Russia still wants Assad to lead the transition to the elections, while the opposition and its regional allies, including the United States and Europe, insist he should step down. So far no compromises are in sight. "We need things to advance in the coming weeks. If the political process is just about putting a few opposition people in nominal cabinet posts then this isn't going to go very far," said a European diplomat close to the talks.. "If there isn't a political transition the civil war will continue and Islamic State will benefit from it," he said. Fawaz Gerges, author of ISIS: A History, said: "At this point the Russians have the upper hand in dictating a solution. The Americans are playing on Russias playing field." UNCERTAINTY His judgment is underlined by Sergei Lavrov, Russias foreign minister, who boasted in a recent interview that "the Americans understand they can do nothing without Russia. They can no longer solve serious problems on their own". Yet uncertainty surrounds Moscows intentions, after Putin suddenly withdrew part of his forces from Syria last month. That led to speculation among Assad's enemies that Russia was contemplating whether to ditch Assad an outcome many Syria watchers find highly improbable. "The key issue remains when and if the Russians will act to facilitate this transition. It's unclear, and we get the feeling that the recent talks didn't change much in the Russian position," the European diplomat said. "I don't think the upcoming round will reach any real decisions on the political process, he added. Gerges says the partial pull-back sent a message to the Americans that Russia is a rational and credible force that is interested in a diplomatic settlement. It was also intended as a jolt to Assad, by then so emboldened at the way Russia and Iran had transformed his weak position that he was announcing plans to recapture all of Syria. "The message to the Assad regime was that Russia doesnt play by Assads playbook, it doesnt want to get down in Syrias quagmire (but) wants to cut its losses," Gerges believes. But it is far from clear that Assad interprets these messages the same way. Last month, he dismissed any notion of a transition from the current structure, as agreed by international powers, calling instead for "national unity" solution with some elements of the opposition joining the present government. "The transition period must be under the current constitution, and we will move on to the new constitution after the Syrian people vote for it," Assad told Russia's Sputnik news agency. ASSAD "WILL NOT GO QUIETLY" Faisal al-Yafai, a leading commentator from the United Arab Emirates, says Russia "played its cards in Syria very cleverly, but miscalculated in one aspect". "They assumed that once the (Assad) regime felt secure, it would be more willing to negotiate. In fact, the opposite has happened. "Theres a limit to the pressure that Russia can exert on Assad. Assad absolutely will not go quietly -- and certainly not when there is no real alternative to him, even within the regime," says al-Yafai. Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria and now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, agrees that Russia may not be able to compel Assad to go. The secret police backbone of Assads rule remains intact, he says, and "Assad seems confident again, after his much more sober tone last summer. The Russians may have helped him too much, such that Assad can maintain control of key cities and roads for a long time". Ford also drew attention to the competition over Syria between Russia and Iran, Assads two main allies. Moscows emphasis is on its traditional relations with the Syrian military establishment, while Tehran focusses on the militia network it built with Hezbollah to shore up the regime. Assad is plenty smart to know how to play one country off against the other. I am not even sure Russia would test its heavy pressure capacity against that of Iran in Damascus. The Russians know they might lose", Ford said. Russias involvement in Syria has given it greater insight into the structure of the Assad rule, constructed to intermesh the Assad family and allies from its minority Alawite community with the security services and military command. ASSAD BUOYANT Khaddour from Carnegie says Russia now realises the circumstances for a transition do not yet exist, because removing Assad might unravel the whole power structure. "There is a problem within the regime. It is not capable of producing an alternative to itself internally," says Khaddour, adding the only concession it has made simply to turn up in Geneva was the result of Russian pressure. With limits to Russian and Iranian influence on a newly buoyant Assad, few believe the Geneva talks will bring peace. "If the Russians felt it was time for a solution they would have reached an understanding with the Americans to give up on Assad without giving up on the Alawites. The circumstances are not ripe yet for a solution," says Sarkis Naoum, a leading commentator on Syria. The diplomat added: "The fundamental question is still whether the Russians are serious and want this to happen." "Nobody knows what's in their mind and I'm not sure they even know." (Additional reporting by John Irish; Editing by Giles Elgood)
LONDON (Reuters) - India's Tata Steel will launch the formal sale process for its British assets by Monday and give a "reasonable" timeframe to find a buyer, Britain's business minister said after meeting the company's chairman in Mumbai. Prime Minister David Cameron's government has sought to broker a deal with potential buyers after Tata Steel put its British operations up for sale last week, threatening thousands of jobs. Tata had said it wanted to exit the country as soon as possible, raising fears that the government would not have enough time to find a buyer for a business that has been hit by high costs and cheap Chinese imports. But Sajid Javid, Britain's business minister, told broadcasters after the meeting that Tata had not set a time frame and would allow a reasonable period to find a buyer. "Formal sales process will begin by Monday - govt will do all it can to help secure a serious buyer," he said on Twitter. (Reporting by Kate Holton and William James; editing by Stephen Addison)
By Paul Carrel and Andreas Rinke BERLIN (Reuters) - At an hour-long meeting in Moscow on March 23, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov irritated his German counterpart by raising the case of a German-Russian girl who said she was raped by migrants in Berlin earlier this year. After the girl's claims were reported by Russian media in January, Lavrov accused Germany of "sweeping problems under the rug." The Berlin public prosecutor's office, though, said a medical examination had found the girl had not been raped. That was why Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was so upset when Lavrov raised the issue again. "I can only hope that such incidents and difficulties, as we had in that case, aren't repeated," he told reporters afterwards. The rape case is indicative of the mutual suspicion that officials from both countries say extends to the highest levels of government. At the root of those tensions lie opposing visions for Europe and the Middle East. Those rival visions have led to clashes at diplomatic negotiating tables, in cyberspace and in the media. German and other European security officials accuse Russian media of launching what they call an "information war" against Germany. By twisting the truth in reports on Germany's migrant crisis, the officials say, Russia hopes to fuel popular angst, weaken voters' trust in Chancellor Angela Merkel, and feed divisions in the European Union so that it drops sanctions against Moscow. "Russian propaganda is a danger to the cohesion of our society," Ole Schroeder, German deputy interior minister and a member of Merkel's conservatives, told Reuters. Russian officials deny their country is mounting a campaign against Germany. "These accusations are atrocious," said one Russian official, who said Moscow is the victim of an "indiscriminate information war" being waged from Germany. In February, Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, denied the Kremlin had exploited the rape case to stir up tensions around immigration in Germany. "We cannot agree with such accusations," Peskov said. "On the contrary, we were keen that our position be understood, we were talking about a citizen of the Russian Federation. Any country expresses its concerns (in such cases). It would be wrong to look for any hidden agenda." But officials in Berlin say Russia's aim is to muddy what is true and what is not and shake Germans' trust in Merkel. "The idea today is to get disinformation, which means you don't believe anything," Hans-Peter Hinrichsen, a Foreign Ministry official, told a recent meeting on Russia's role in Europe at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). German and European officials say Russia's aim is two-fold: To exaggerate the problems the migrant crisis is causing Germany and to push Germany to relax its backing for European sanctions on Russia over Moscow's interference in Ukraine. While EU governments last month extended asset freezes and travel bans on Russians and Russian companies, there is less consensus on whether to prolong more far-reaching sanctions on Russia's banking, defence and energy sectors from July. Both sides agree on one point: relations between the two countries are at their lowest point since the early days of the Cold War. BIKINI TROLLS? Beginning in the late 1960s, the then West Germany pursued a policy of 'Ostpolitik', which encouraged warmer ties with Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the two countries grew even closer thanks to trade and cultural ties. But those ties began unraveling when Vladimir Putin returned as Russian president in 2012, and worsened further after the Ukraine crisis began in late 2013. "All the networks, all the personal ties they just don't work anymore," said Stefan Meister, at the DGAP. The accusations of disinformation have spawned a whole new vocabulary. Officials at NATO now talk about the 'weaponization of information' by Russia. Colonel Aivar Jaeski, deputy director at the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, says Russia's campaign against Europe uses "angry trolls" who produce online hate speech, and "bikini trolls" to lure followers and then sow discord and doubt about news events. Jaeski pointed to a NATO StratCom report on trolling, which says the Guardian newspaper's online edition was targeted "in a troll attack that is considered to have been ordered by the Kremlin" over its reporting on the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied funding or backing online trolls, and has specifically denied any connection with a company based in St Petersburg whose ex-employees have said they were paid to spread disinformation, praise Putin and criticize the West. A GERMAN CAMPAIGN? In the rape case, Russian media reported the German-Russian girl under German law she can only be identified as Lisa F. had been abducted by 'Arab-looking men' and raped repeatedly over a 30-hour period. Janis Sarts, director of the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, said Russian media continued to report that even after the Berlin authorities said the girl had not been raped. Europe's East StratCom Task Force has collected dozens of examples of Russian reporting on the migrant crisis that it says are clear cases of deliberate disinformation. German daily Bild reported in March that Germany's foreign and domestic intelligence agencies were warning of increasing Russian interference in German politics. Moscow rejects the idea of any coordinated campaign. One Russian official said there was a German media campaign to paint Russia in a bad light and "demonize" it. The official said that Russian media had formerly been too positive about Germany and were now more objective. "This ends the discrepancy that saw the German media be very critical of Russia and the Russian media paint a very favorable picture of Germany," he said. BLACK BOX At the March 23 meeting, the two countries reached an "academic cooperation accord." Both sides also continue to emphasize cultural ties. But repairing political ties may be harder. Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) junior members in Merkel's ruling coalition and the party behind "Ostpolitik" all those decades ago seems increasingly ready to compromise with Moscow. Sigmar Gabriel, an SDP member and Germany's Economy Minister, said recently that the EU should try to lift sanctions on Russia by this summer. Merkel, though, has refused to ease the sanctions, insisting that Russia first needs to comply with an agreement to enforce a ceasefire, pull back heavy weapons, exchange prisoners, and hold internationally monitored local elections in eastern Ukraine. German officials say Merkel speaks to Putin more than any other Western leader and recognizes better than most that the Russian leader respects firmness. But the governments still struggle to understand each other. "The Kremlin is like a Black Box: we have a rough idea of who sits in the Black Box but we have no idea what they are thinking, what they are worried about, what they are thinking for 5-10 years' time," a senior German official said. (Additional reporting by Sabine Siebold in Berlin, Robin Emmott in Brussels and Andrew Osborne in Moscow; Edited by Simon Robinson)
A Northern Ireland cattle farmer has been convicted of unnecessary suffering to one of his animals, which was found to be so injured it had to be put down.
Ian Wilson, Ballydermot Road, Castledawson, Magherafelt, pleaded guilty and was fined 300 plus a 15 offenders levy.
See also: Farmer receives lifetime ban for animal neglect
The case arose from an anonymous complaint by a member of the public to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (Dard) in Northern Ireland.
Veterinary service officers visited Mr Wilsons farm and discovered an animal with a fractured leg.
In the opinion of the veterinary officer, the animal had the injury for some time. The animal was euthanised to prevent it from suffering further.
Mr Wilson was convicted at Magherafelt magistrates court of one charge of caused unnecessary suffering to the animal, contrary to Northern Irelands Welfare of Animals Act on Monday (4 April).
A Dard spokesman said the department gave high priority to the welfare of animals and operated a vigorous enforcement policy to ensure full compliance of regulatory requirements.
Any breaches were investigated thoroughly and offenders would be prosecuted as necessary.
Only 300,000+ dollars to attend. Sidewalk: Still Free.
Democracy Please, calling all true San Franciscans!
It will cost more than four times the average income in San Francisco to have dinner next to Hillary Clinton and the Clooneys there next month.For two seats at the head table with Clinton, George Clooney and his wife, attorney Amal Clooney, at an April 15 fundraiser, a couple must contribute or raise a whopping $353,400 a huge ticket price for a hard-dollar fundraiser.Story Continued BelowRead more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/hillary-clinton-george-clooney-fundraiser-221207#ixzz45N3tWwnM Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook
Drugreporters video advocacy team filmed key speeches and interviewed some of the participants at the UN's drug meeting in Vienna.
[ Audio: 10:43 ]Radio-ready: Drugreporters video advocacy team filmed key speeches and interviewed some of the participants at the UN's drug meeting in Vienna - please watch and share the movie! http://drogriporter.hu/en/cnd2016 Upcoming: April 19 to 21, the U.N. General Assembly and Special Session (UNGASS) will hold a meeting to talk about the problem of the War on Drugs. Human rights groups hope UNGASS will be an important opportunity to push the envelope, amending the United Nations Drug Treaties to safely regulate drugs, and to acknowledge and make visible the social and economic consequences of the War on Drugs. Such hopes were dashed at the annual narcotics meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna in March. Drugreporters video advocacy team filmed key speeches and interviewed some of the participants at the UN's drug meeting in Vienna. In its secretive process, delegates created an outcome document that the General Assembly is expected to endorse at UNGASS this April. Excluded from the document are the words harm reduction and any reference to naloxone. Watch the film, "Governments Disagree Over Global Drug Control" at http://drogriporter.hu/en/cnd2016
SFPD Raid Homeless Camp at the Site of Thursday's Police Killing of Jose Luis Gongora by Frank Sosa
At approxamately 11:45 p.m. on Saturday Night, members of the San Francisco Police department raided and harassed the homeless community on Shotwell betweend 17 and 18th Streets, the site of Thursday's killling of Jose Luis Gongora
San Francisco, CA (April 10, 2016) -- On Saturday night, approximately 6 members of the San Francisco Police Department raided the encampment on Shotwell Street between 17th and 18th Streets, the site of Thursday's police killing of Jose Luis Gongora. Witnesses, including us, gathered in response to a call from The Alex Nieto Coalition spokespeson Adriana Camarena on social media who received a phone call alerting her of the sudden police presence . Witnesses told The Anti Police-Terror Project that police officers knocked over objects with sticks, including several memorial candles that lined the front of Gongora's tent which is still at the scene. The officers were not keen on us filming their actions as they shined their flashlights directly into our camera lens as we tried to capture them dismantling several tents. Witnesses also saw them slashing into shelters with a knife.
"This is retaliation for witnessing a police shooting" stated Camerena at the scene. Her sentiment rang true as the police did not completely destroy or remove the encampment. After several more witnesses arrived, they got in their vehicles and left, leaving several tents and various scattered objects completely intact. Residents of the encampment did not know what to expect next, but nonetheless began to clean up their belongings, while some went back to bed.
Oberlin College Comes Under Hostile Attack from Israeli-Firster Websites
by Will Be Gnome Sun, Apr 10, 2016 3:56PM
An ancient, mutually beneficial relationship between plants and fungi could make agriculture more sustainable by reducing the need for chemical fertilizers, according to professor Heike Bucking of the South Dakota State University Department of Biology and Microbiology.
For more than 500 million years, the majority of land plants have shared their carbohydrates with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi that colonize their root systems, Bucking explained. In exchange, these fungi provide plants with nitrogen and phosphorus, and improve the stress resistance of their host.
These fungi are seen as living fossils and explore the soil with its hyphae in the search for nutrients, and deliver these nutrients to its host. As reward the host plant transfers anywhere from 4 to 20 percent of its photosynthetically fixed carbon to these mycorrhizal symbionts.
"We think these fungi have the potential to increase the biomass production of bioenergy crops and the yield of food crops and do so in a more sustainable and environmentally friendly way," said Bucking. She studies these interactions in food and bioenergy crops including wheat, corn, soybeans, alfalfa, clover and perennial grasses, such as prairie cordgrass.
Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, South Dakota Wheat Commission, Sun Grant Initiative, Soybean Research and Promotion Council and the U.S. Department of Energy -- Joint Genome Initiative.
Defining plant-fungi relationships
Supply and demand determine the amount of nutrients that plant and fungi exchange in this mutualistic relationship, according to Bucking. To unravel these complex interactions, she collaborates with researchers at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and the University of British Columbia as well as other South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station researchers.
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"Though a host plant is colonized by multiple fungi species simultaneously, the plant knows exactly where certain benefits are coming from. The host plant can distinguish between good and bad fungal behavior and allocates resources accordingly," she said, noting that the host plant transfers anywhere from 4 to 20 percent of its photosynthetically fixed carbon to mycorrhizal fungi.
These fungi also form common mycorrhizal networks that give them access to multiple hosts. Her research showed that when host plants were shaded and thus decreased their carbohydrate allocation, fungi responded by reducing their nutrient share.
Optimizing fungi for specific crops
She and her collaborators have also found that some fungi are more beneficial than others. For example, Bucking and her collaborators evaluated the relationship between alfalfa and 31 different isolates of 10 arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal species.
They then classified the fungal isolates as high-, medium- or low-performance isolates. The researchers found that high-performance isolates increased the biomass and nutrient uptake of alfalfa by more than 170 percent, while the low-performance ones did not have any effect on growth.
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However, those that benefit one crop may not provide the same nutrients or benefits to another crop species, she cautioned. "Even different isolates of one fungal species can behave differently, and it will be necessary to identify fungi that are optimally adapted to their specific environment and host plant to get the highest plant benefit.
Adapting to stressors
In addition to providing nutrients, these fungi can protect food and bioenergy crops from environmental stresses, such as drought, salinity and heavy metals, and diseases, Bucking explained. "All the stresses that a plant can potentially be exposed to are generally improved by mycorrhizal interactions."
Increasing tolerance through conventional breeding generally targets only one specific stress factor, but crops are often subjected to multiple stresses simultaneously, she pointed out. "These fungi, if used efficiently, can provide the plant with an improved resistance against stresses that are often difficult for us to predict."
However, she added, more research is necessary to better understand how this ancient symbiosis between land plants and fungi can be used to its full potential.
Rowdy Girl Sanctuary
It's said that love knows no bounds. For a potbelly pig named Ivy, this proverb couldn't be truer. The object of Ivy's affection is another potbelly pig named Herman. When Ivy arrived at Rowdy Girl Sanctuary in Texas last July, she decided that she didn't only want Herman to be her stall mate, she also wanted to be with him every second of the day. Renee King-Sonnen, founder of Rowdy Girl Sanctuary, tells The Dodo that Herman wasn't too sure at first: "Ivy was a sassy little girl. She was smaller than Herman, and Herman didn't want anything to do with her when she first came in."
Ivy and Herman in their stall | Katie Kennedy
After a bit of time, Ivy managed to find a way to waddle into Herman's heart, and the two of them became inseparable. "She always wanted to be where Herman was," Renee says.
Dodo Shows Foster Diaries Scared Pittie Gets So Happy When He Meets This Guy And His Pack Of Dogs
Rowdy Girl Sanctuary
The pigs - who were both rescued from neglectful situations - ate together, slept next to each other, and even went for adventures around the sanctuary together. The pigs adored each other so much, the volunteers called Herman and Ivy boyfriend and girlfriend.
Can you spot Ivy? That's her directly behind Herman, trying to share his food. | Rowdy Girl Sanctuary
Unfortunately, Herman became seriously ill a couple of weeks ago. The vet who examined him believed it was cancer, but didn't think there was much they could do for him. The ever-devoted girlfriend, Ivy stayed by Herman's side throughout his illness. She slept near Herman to make sure he was never alone, and when Herman passed away on March 31, Ivy was right there with him. "My husband told me that she went to his grave and wouldn't leave," Renee says. "She stayed there for hours and hours."
Love knows no bounds! Ivy won't leave Herman's side, even after he passed away. | Rowdy Girl Sanctuary
Ivy is still in deep mourning for Herman, but she's getting lots of back caresses from her human friends, as well as attention from the other animals at the sanctuary. While no one will ever be able to replace Herman, the love that surrounds Ivy at Rowdy Girl Sanctuary will surely bring her comfort.
Ivy at Herman's grave | Rowdy Girl Sanctuary
Renee started Rowdy Girl Sanctuary after marrying a multi-generational cattle farmer named Tommy. Within months of moving to Tommy's ranch, Renee started to find it heart-wrenching to watch the cows - whom she thought of as her "babies" - being taken away for slaughter. Renee started watching animal rights documentaries and slaughterhouse videos, leading her to become vegan. She eventually convinced her rancher husband to turn his farm into a sanctuary, and even bought her husband's last herd of cows so the animals could live out their days on the land. Tommy is now vegan as well, and supports his wife in everything she does. Rowdy Girl Sanctuary is home to 49 cows, four pigs, 21 chickens, four horses, three ducks, a turkey, nine dogs and four cats. To help Renee and Tommy continue helping animals, please consider donating.
UnitedHealth Group, the largest U.S. health insurer, has decided to call it quits in two state Obamacare markets in the latest challenge to President Obamas health-care overhaul.
The insurer wont sell plans for next year in Georgia and Arkansas, according to state insurance regulators. Tyler Mason, a UnitedHealth spokesman, confirmed the exits and declined to say whether the company would drop out of additional states.
Many insurers have found it difficult to turn a profit in the new markets created by the Affordable Care Act, under which individuals turned out to be more costly to care for than the companies expected.
UnitedHealth and Aetna both posted losses from the policies last year, as did big Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in states such as North Carolina.
UnitedHealth began warning in November that it might exit ACA markets as it racked up losses. In December, the company said it should have stayed out of the individual exchanges longer.
[UnitedHealth Group says it is scaling back efforts in ACA exchanges]
Leaving some state exchanges could help UnitedHealth boost its profits next year, Ana Gupte, an analyst at Leerink Partners, said Friday in a research note.
Exits from unprofitable markets will act as a tailwind to earnings, Gupte wrote. We have more conviction in our view that there is upside to UnitedHealths earnings estimates.
The ACA relies on private health-insurance companies to offer policies that individuals can buy in government-run markets. About 58 percent of consumers had fewer options in 2016 than the year before, while 31 percent had more choices, according to consulting firm McKinsey & Co.
UnitedHealths decision to stop offering ACA plans next year means that people who are currently enrolled with the insurer will have to choose a new health-insurance provider next year. It doesnt affect their current coverage.
As with any new market, we expect changes and adjustments in the early years with issuers both entering and exiting states, Aaron Albright, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in an email. The marketplace is a reliable source of coverage for millions of Americans with a robust number of plan choices.
While UnitedHealth is the biggest carrier in the United States, with about 42 million medical customers, it has a smaller role in the ACAs markets. The company had about 650,000 in individual exchange-compliant policies as of Dec. 31.
About 12.7 million people signed up for ACA coverage for this year, including about 587,800 in Georgia and 73,600 in Arkansas, according to CMS. The agency doesnt disclose what insurers people picked.
In Arkansas, 544 people were enrolled in UnitedHealth ACA plans, according to Kenneth Ryan James, a spokesman for the state insurance department. He said Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans are dominant in the state.
UnitedHealth had an additional 5,923 members enrolled in private Medicaid policies tied to the ACA in Arkansas, James said. UnitedHealth is also exiting that business.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported earlier about UnitedHealths decision in that state.
Including UnitedHealth, Georgia has nine health insurers that offer ACA polices, according to Glenn Allen, a spokesman for the states insurance commissioner. Others include Aetna, Humana and Cigna. No other company has yet told Georgia that it is exiting its market, and companies have until May 11 to decide, Allen said.
Bloomberg News
(Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
White women have been dying prematurely at higher rates since the turn of this century, passing away in their 30s, 40s and 50s in a slow-motion crisis driven by decaying health in small-town America, according to an analysis of national health and mortality statistics by The Washington Post.
Among African Americans, Hispanics and even the oldest white Americans, death rates have continued to fall. But for white women in what should be the prime of their lives, death rates have spiked upward. In one of the hardest-hit groups rural white women in their late 40s the death rate has risen by 30 percent.
The Posts analysis, which builds on academic research published last year, shows a clear divide in the health of urban and rural Americans, with the gap widening most dramatically among whites. The statistics reveal two Americas diverging, neither as healthy as it should be but one much sicker than the other.
In modern times, rising death rates are extremely rare and typically involve countries in upheaval, such as Russia immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In affluent countries, people generally enjoy increasingly long lives, thanks to better cancer treatments, drugs that lower cholesterol and the risk of heart attacks, fewer fatal car accidents and a lower rate of violent crime.
But progress for middle-aged white Americans is lagging in many places and has stopped entirely in smaller cities and towns and the vast open reaches of the country. The things that reduce the risk of death are now being overwhelmed by things that elevate it, including opioid abuse, heavy drinking, smoking and other self-destructive behaviors.
White men are also dying in midlife at unexpectedly high rates. But the most extreme changes in mortality have occurred among white women, who are far more likely than their grandmothers to be smokers, suffer from obesity or drink themselves to death.
White women still outlive white men and African Americans of both sexes. But for the generations of white women who have come of age since the 1960s, that health advantage appears to be evaporating.
This reversal may be fueling anger among white voters: The Post last month found a correlation between places with high white death rates and support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Public health experts say the rising white death rate reflects a broader health crisis, one that has made the United States the least healthy affluent nation in the world over the past 20 years. The reason these early deaths are so conspicuous among white women, these experts say, is because in the past the members of this comparatively privileged group have been unlikely to die prematurely.
Laudy Aron, a researcher with the Urban Institute, said rising white death rates show that the United States slide in overall health is not being driven simply by poor health in historically impoverished communities.
You cant explain it away as Its those people over there who are pulling us down, Aron said. Were all going down.
For this article, The Post examined death records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, breaking the information down geographically, county by county, by level of urbanization and cause of death.
Big cities and their suburbs metropolitan areas of more than 1 million people looked strikingly different from the rest of the country. The Post divided these populations into urban and rural categories, with the rural population encompassing smaller cities as well as small towns and the most remote places.
The statistics show decaying health for all white women since 2000. The trend was most dramatic for women in the more rural areas. There, for every 100,000 women in their late 40s, 228 died at the turn of this century. Today, 296 are dying. And in rural areas, the uptick in mortality was noticeable even earlier, as far back as 1990. Since then, death rates for rural white women in midlife have risen by nearly 50 percent.
In the hardest-hit places 21 counties arrayed across the South and Midwest the death rate has doubled, or worse, since the turn of the century for white women in midlife.
In Victoria County, Tex., a rural area near the Gulf Coast, deaths among women 45 to 54 have climbed by 169 percent in that time period, the sharpest increase in that age group of any U.S. county. The death rate climbed from 216 per 100,000 people to 583.
Lisa Campbell, medical director for the Victoria County health department, said a third of adults in the county are obese, roughly in line with the national average. Also, 1 in 5 smokes well above the national average and people can still light up in restaurants and other public places.
Campbell said she has been struck by how many white women she knows who have some kind of cancer.
Its kind of weird, actually, she said.
White women remain an advantaged demographic, just less so, year by year. Four decades ago, the average white American woman lived eight years longer than the average white American man. Today, that health advantage has narrowed to just five years.
What were seeing is the shrinking protective effect of gender in life expectancy, said former U.S. assistant surgeon general Susan Blumenthal, a womens-health expert.
Multiple factors are converging to produce this corrosion of American health. Foremost is an epidemic of opioid and heroin overdoses that has been particularly devastating in working-class and rural communities.
Another killer is related to heavy drinking. Deaths of rural white women in their early 50s from cirrhosis of the liver have doubled since the end of the 20th century, The Post found.
Suicides are also on the rise. The suicide rate is climbing for white women of all ages and has more than doubled for rural white women ages 50 to 54.
Other trends may be contributing to the die-off, including obesity. Americans are the heaviest people in the world outside a few Pacific island nations; more than a third of adults in the United States are considered obese. The average American woman today weighs as much as an American man did in the early 1960s.
Obesity causes its own kind of liver disease and can be lethal in combination with other conditions, such as diabetes, heart attacks and strokes.
Every death is unique, with its own narrative, often one that is complicated and, in the deepest sense, personal. There are many paths to that final destination. Medical experts refer to morbidity, a catchall term for the rate of serious illnesses.
I try to emphasize: Its not just mortality its also morbidity, said Princeton University economist Anne Case, lead author of the much-publicized study that late last year drew national attention to rising mortality among middle-aged whites, particularly among those with a high school education or less. There are millions of people underneath these graphs who are in pain.
Researchers circled the dying-whites phenomenon for several years before clearly recognizing what they were seeing. In 2014, the increase in the death rate of relatively young white women was right there in the CDCs massive annual report on American health, but it drew no comment in the introductory highlights. Readers had to scrutinize Table 23 on Page 109 to spot the trend.
Other reports were more explicit. A 2013 study at the University of Wisconsin looked at the geography of death and discovered that mortality for women of all races had risen in 43 percent of U.S. counties between 1992 and 2006. Mens mortality had risen in only 3 percent of counties.
Also in 2013, a sweeping study Shorter Lives, Poorer Health, from the National Research Council and the National Academies Institute of Medicine showed a broad health disadvantage among Americans compared with people in other affluent countries.
Aron, the Urban Institute researcher who co-authored that study, wrote in January 2014 that increases in mortality are especially pronounced among white women of reproductive age, not a group we generally think of as being disadvantaged. Last year, she and two co-authors published a separate article highlighting the perplexing number of white women who are dying prematurely.
Then, in November, Case and her husband, Angus Deaton, another Princeton economics professor, published their paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Deaton had recently won the Nobel Prize in economics, an honor that added media gloss to the dying-whites study. Suddenly, it was a national story.
Other researchers weighed in, debating aspects of the Case-Deaton statistical analysis. For example, their study played down differences in gender; Case and Deaton contend that the noticeably higher death rates for women were driven largely by smoking patterns.
Others have questioned the sudden focus on whites, pointing out that African Americans continue to have shorter life spans and face severe health challenges exacerbated by racial segregation and discrimination. Why, they ask, give so much attention to a group that remains statistically advantaged?
The truth is that white death rates are still much, much lower than they are for African Americans, said Bridget Catlin, senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin. My concern is that people will think, Oh, its whites that need to be helped.
Catlin is co-director of a program, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, that has found a growing divide between urban and rural health consistent with The Posts findings and implicitly consistent with Case and Deatons, since whites are a large majority in most rural areas.
Case said that the whites who are dying are not Americas elites.
They may be privileged by the color of their skin, she said, but that is the only way in their lives theyve ever been privileged.
In at least 30 counties in the South, black women in midlife now have a lower mortality rate than middle-aged white women, The Post found. Thats up from a single such county in 1999.
Among them is Newton County, Ga., southeast of Atlanta, where the death rate for black women ages 35 to 54 dropped from 472 per 100,000 to 234. The rate for white women went the other way, from 255 to 472.
Anne Case and her husband Angus Deaton, both Princeton University economists, published a study late last year that drew national attention to rising mortality among middle-aged whites. (Yana Paskova/For The Washington Post)
Theories abound about what has sparked the die-off. Researchers have noted that a powerful opioid, oxycodone, won regulatory approval and its use became widespread around the time white death rates began to rise.
But overdoses account for only a portion of the extra deaths; something else is going on.
The stressors have increased, said Janine Clayton, director of the Office of Research on Womens Health at the National Institutes of Health. If its affecting women who previously had better health, how might it even more deleteriously affect women who previously had borderline health?
Researchers point out that this generation of white women has experienced a revolutionary change in gender roles over the past half-century, surging into the workforce while typically retaining traditional duties as domestic caregivers a dual role to which many women of color have long been accustomed. White women often find themselves harried in ways their grandmothers could never have imagined.
I think we are undergoing a change thats comparable to the Industrial Revolution, Aron said. Those of us who are lucky enough to have jobs are sort of clinging to them for dear life.
Amid these social changes, American women collectively became more likely to engage in risky behaviors, health experts say. There is a declining difference, for example, between men and women in the consumption of alcohol, said George Koob, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Men are still more likely to abuse alcohol, Koob said, but women tend to experience a telescoping of the negative outcomes and more quickly develop alcohol-related diseases. Koob noted that alcohol abuse can be particularly deadly in combination with obesity, which is rampant in rural America.
I think thats what youre picking up, is insults to the liver, Koob said of The Posts findings.
Women in middle age also are more likely to smoke or to have smoked at some point in their lives, and smoking-related diseases are a huge factor in womens mortality. When men began quitting cigarettes in large numbers in the 1960s and 1970s, the smoking gap between men and women nearly vanished.
Lung cancer now kills far more women than breast cancer.
Different racial and ethnic groups have distinct health profiles and particular challenges. Black women with breast cancer are more likely to die from it, for example, even though white women have higher rates of the disease. Blacks also have much higher rates than whites of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and asthma and are less likely to have health insurance.
Whites stand out for their high rate of opioid use. Americans represent 5 percent of the worlds population but consume at least 80 percent of its prescription opioids. And whites, for complex sociological and economic reasons, are far more likely than blacks or Hispanics to be prescribed opioids.
People hooked on opioids often turn to street heroin, which gives the same effect and is cheaper. A medical study last year reported that 90 percent of the people who tried heroin for the first time in the past decade were white. Meanwhile, overdoses from painkillers, heroin and other opiates have been rising faster among women.
The CDC recently responded to the opioid epidemic with new guidelines for how and when doctors should prescribe these powerful drugs. The CDC did not issue gender-specific recommendations for men and women except for ones related to pregnancy; Blumenthal, the womens-health specialist, said sex differences are often overlooked in research reporting, as well as in clinical treatment.
In Walker County, Ala., less than an hour northwest of Birmingham, the population of 65,000 is 91 percent white, and opiate addiction is rampant. The coal mines have been shutting down for decades. Nearly 1 in 5 working-age people are listed as disabled. Since 1999, the death rate for white women 35 to 44 has jumped 170 percent, The Post found.
The countys sheriff says that 4 out of 5 arrests are for drug-
related crimes.
When we see somebody dead under 50, we automatically think drugs, said Walker County Circuit Clerk Susan Odom, whose sister died of a drug overdose. Died at home? Drugs.
Members of the St. Louis Regional Heroin Initiative prepare to execute a heroin raid on a residential property in St. Peters, Mo. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
Some regions are hit especially hard, such as the belt of poverty and pain that runs across the northern tier of the South, incorporating much of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas. But significant increases in white mortality also showed up in the small-town and rural Midwest such as Johnson County, Iowa, home of the University of Iowa and in parts of the West, such as Nye County, Nev., and Siskiyou County, Calif.
No region is completely free of the trend. The big exceptions are the major cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington and Houston. There, the death rate for whites has continued to fall, but less dramatically than for blacks and Hispanics.
Men feel these forces, too. The Post found a sharp rise in mortality among men 25 to 35 a prime age for overdoses. An older generation has also stumbled: The Posts analysis showed that, since 2008, when the nation descended into the Great Recession, the death rate for white men 55 to 64 has marched upward.
In general, men are significantly more likely to die prematurely than women. And because the male death rate is relatively high to begin with, a small spike, or even a failure to drop as expected, can mean of lot of funerals.
Compared with a scenario in which mortality rates for whites continued to fall steadily after 1998, roughly 650,000 people have died prematurely since 1999 around 450,000 men and nearly 200,000 women.
That number nearly equals the death toll of the Civil War.
The Norman Rockwell vision of America was always heavily idealized, but the country has changed in fundamental ways over the past half-century. We are now an urban society. Left behind are small towns and small cities where the kids leave after high school graduation, the churches struggle to stay open and the biggest business in town is often the local hospital.
In Bakersfield, Calif., a city of about 375,000 in heavily agricultural Kern County, Samantha Burton, 42, was addicted to painkillers for a decade but has been clean for more than two years. She said her problem started with a prescription for Percocet after she got a bad case of food poisoning.
This can be a very stifling place. Its culturally barren, she said of Bakersfield. There is no place where children can go and see what its like to be somewhere else, to be someone else. At first, the drugs are an escape from your problems, from this place, and then youre trapped.
One theory about what is causing rising mortality among whites is the dashed expectations hypothesis. According to Johns Hopkins University sociologist Andrew Cherlin, whites today are more pessimistic than their forebears about their opportunities to advance in life. They are also more pessimistic than their black and Hispanic contemporaries.
The idea that todays generations will do better than their parents generation is part of the American Dream. It has always been true until now, Cherlin said. It may still be true for college-educated Americans, but not for the high-school-educated people we used to call the working class.
Cherlin said whites benefited from discriminatory hiring when the working class was built over much of the past century. Union jobs tended to go to whites, he said, and labor contracts protected them until the unions lost power and jobs went overseas.
Whites had a privileged place in the blue-collar economy, he said. And as the middle of the labor market disappeared, so did that historic white privilege.
Predominantly white, working-class areas with high death rates have proved to be fertile ground for Trump. Political observers speculate that the voter anger driving his campaign emerges from the many distresses felt in these economically challenged and increasingly morbid places.
The wave of lethal agents rolling across the country is broad in its effects, but it appears to be cresting in places that are particularly vulnerable such as a town where the trains no longer stop, or a small city that saw its biggest manufacturer move overseas, or in a household broken by divorce or substance abuse or tragedy.
Or in the mind and body of someone who is doing poorly, and just barely hanging on.
Lenny Bernstein, Anne Hull and Kimberly Kindy contributed to this report.
Host Alex Trebek takes the stage during the Jeopardy Power Players event, taped at DAR Constitution Hall on April 9. (Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post)
The first of the loyalists took position at 7:30 in the morning. A brutally cold April rain may make daffodils droop, but it cannot daunt these hearty troops.
They are here for Jeopardy, Power Players Edition. But really they are here for America. One rooted in facts and truths, governed by rules, research and historical precedents. One in which the smartest person wins.
And they are here, by the thousands, out of love for that greatest of all Americans, Alex Trebek. Never mind that he was born in Canada thats a detail we are willing to overlook.
So inside the storied marble walls of DAR Constitution Hall well go, where on Saturday five episodes of Jeopardy were taped in front of some 6,000 superfans. And these are not just any episodes. These are the Power Player shows like Celebrity Jeopardy, but with Famous-for-D.C. types.
And so here comes conservative commentator S.E. Cupp, bounding onto the specially constructed stage, to stand before a massive American flag and a somewhat-angry-looking replica of Lincoln in his memorial. Its not quite 9:30 a.m., but shes plenty awake, the first to run the traps each of the 15 contestants will encounter before taping begins.
She will answer questions from the media, learn how to use the buzzer harder than it looks, staffers insist and, with others, play a practice game with a Trebek stand-in to get the rhythm of the thing.
Her goal for today, it turns out, will be the same as that of every one of her fellow contestants: Dont get embarrassed.
From left, Chuck Todd, S.E. Cupp and Jonathan Franzen take the Jeopardy stage. (Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post)
Next out is that famed man of letters, Jonathan Franzen, wearing dark jeans, mussed hair, sport-coat-no-tie. Hes also wearing a vague look of nausea. Asked about the motto he lives by, Franzen mutters something about Don DeLillo and notes how much he admires St. Francis. Then hes gone. Hell be back in three or four minutes, his handler assures a colleague. He just wanted to get off stage. Writing sweeping, 500-page domestic novels is, apparently, poor preparation for the trials of Jeopardy.
But Chuck Todd, moderator of NBCs Meet the Press, is on his way to the spotlight, looking confident, relaxed, ready to play. I did this one other time, he explains. Having won that other time, my wife was very much against me doing this again.
By 10 a.m., its time for the practice game to begin, and most of the crowd has been seated, rain-soaked and red-nosed, blowing warm breath into cold, cupped hands.
Category: A Colorful Category. Answer, as read by the Trebek body-double: Jet and ebony.
Black! Franzen shouts. Correct, but he forgot to use his buzzer and to phrase it as a question. No points awarded. During break, a producer will give the Pulitzer finalist some remedial buzzer tips, which seems to help.
Twenty minutes later, the crowd mostly white, mostly young(ish), mostly self-professed nerds hears the words theyve been waiting for. And now, here is the host Alex Trebek!
He tells the contestants its time to get to work, and categories come flying. We can tell you nothing of the results, lest the Jeopardy Gods place a pox upon our house. (Perhaps there is a clue regarding the winners encrypted into this story. If anyone can decode it, a Jeopardy fan can. But would a true loyalist want to?)
Trebek takes questions from the audience during a commercial break. (Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post)
Commercial break. And here Trebek comes alive. He is 75 and somehow ageless. The voice, the stature, the face virtually unchanged after 32 years as host of the longest-running game show on American television. He bounds to the front of the stage to take questions from the audience.
Q: Where do you get your questions?
A: We have a staff of researchers.
Q: When are you going to retire?
A: When am I going to retire? Jeez. I never liked you.
Final Jeopardy and then a few more questions.
Q: Whats your favorite place to travel?
A: I love going to Yorkshire, England. Especially Haworth, home of the Brontes.
Q: How do you prepare for every taping?
A: I drink. And Im going to go do that now.
They laugh after almost every response. It doesnt much matter what he says. Trebek can do no wrong. Especially in Washington, which he swears is his favorite place to tape. D.C. Jeopardy fans are not only loyal, he says. They are very kind. They are very supportive, and theyre bright. And that, of course, elicits one of the biggest rounds of applause for the day.
[From 2012: Alex Trebek, the man with all the answers, is still looking for a few:I will die without having come up with the answers to many things]
Its time for Round 2 and former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele, who says he wants Jeopardy fans to know that he used to deejay. And I still do. Thats how I relax. After a long day, I go home. I set up my boards . . .
From left, Anderson Cooper, Lara Logan and Michael Steele clown around on the stage at DAR. (Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post)
Anderson Cooper saunters out wearing a teal necktie coordinated to match his eyes. Hes been on Jeopardy three times. Won twice. But thats not what he wants to talk about. He wants to talk about the time he lost to Cheech Marin. Who not only beat me, he butchered me. Redemption would be sweet.
But first hell have to get through CBS News foreign correspondent Lara Logan, who seems a tad nervous. Its terrifying, she says. Id rather be with the Special Forces covering the Islamic State than be on this show.
Like the other contestants, Logan is asked to play a get-to-know-you word association game.
Hamilton, is the word an interviewer gives Logan. Previous contestants had given responses such as Alexander and musical.
Hamilton Beach, Logan replies, before launching into a story about a faulty small appliance she wanted to return. There were details, but lets just make this a public service reminder not to be on the other end of Logans customer-service calls.
After a lunch break, Round 3 pits CNN anchor Kate Bolduan against Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart and comedian Louis C.K. In this context, the most popular comedian of the moment seems more like a beloved, middle-aged uncle ill-fitting suit, unbuttoned shirt, obvious self-doubt. I dont know much of anything, he says. I barely graduated high school.
[From 2013: Alex Trebek on the only trick to winning Jeopardy]
The competition gets underway, but soon the real show the show between Trebek and his fans continues.
Q: What percent of the questions on the show do you get right?
A: About 60 percent. It used to be higher, but I have no knowledge about the current music scene. Boyz II Men and the Mills Brothers are the same to me.
Q: Who should play you in the biopic of your life?
A: Kevin Kline, Johnny Depp, Kevin Spacey or Betty White.
A buzzer awaits celebrity contestants during the Power Players event. (Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post)
Trebeks stand-in during rehearsal, Jimmy McGuire, warms up the audience at DAR Constitution Hall. (Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post)
Round 4 comes and goes with Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) playing against Republican strategist Ana Navarro and CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin. Trebek makes more cracks about his drinking, his murky retirement plans and the Washington regions faulty Metro system.
By the time taping of the last show begins at 8:30 p.m. Abe Lincolns eyes have begun to look more tired than angry.
But Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner is ready to test his knowledge against CNNs David Gregory and Melissa Harris-Perry, who recently walked off her MSNBC show but hinted at her upcoming plans: Keep an eye on my shoes. Huh. (For the record, they were nude, peep-toe, platform pumps.)
The buzzers start going, and when they stop, Trebek makes his way to the audience for one last set of questions.
Q: Favorite topic of all time?
A: Weve done more than 7,000 shows. And I have trouble remembering what I ate for dinner last night.
Q: How did you get involved with the musk ox? This question comes from a former Jeopardy contestant there are several in the audience and it prompts a long explanation from Trebek. He explains that the musk ox is like a buffalo with a long fur coat. He once read that to protect themselves against their biggest predator, wolves, musk oxen form a circle around the herds women and children, with their horns facing out. Trebek was enchanted by the way they get in formation to protect their families and became an ambassador for the Musk Ox Farm in Alaska.
So when you make a donation, he says, You will get a card signed by me as Father of the Herd.
By 9:15 p.m. the final round of applause has been given. But Trebek is still on stage, shaking hands, posing for pictures, standing in front of a giant American flag, tending to his herd.
I once lived in Scarsdale, N.Y., one of the most education-obsessed villages on the planet. During a big parents meeting at the public middle school, I amused myself by raising my hand and asking how they were going to decide who would be accelerated into algebra in eighth grade.
It was an unkind and immature thing to do. As I expected, my question unleashed a wave of anxiety that forced administrators to abandon the nights agenda and deal with nothing else until we went home. In Scarsdale, as well as many parts of the Washington area, few topics grab more parental attention than middle school accelerated math.
But now, the nations biggest school reform, the Common Core State Standards, suggests those families restrain their ambitions and delay algebra until high school.
Hows that going?
In the Washington area, slowly. Districts here seem reluctant to defy parental expectations. Nor are reform advocates explaining their intentions well.
[Many parents hated Common Core math at first, before figuring it out]
Here is how the Common Core begins its explanation of the eighth-grade math course it offers as an alternative to Algebra I: Formulating and reasoning about expressions and equations, including modeling an association in bivariate data with a linear equation, and solving linear equations and systems of linear equations.
I was a good math student. I took calculus during my senior year of high school, a big goal for parents who want their children to take algebra in eighth grade. But I found the Common Core website to be inscrutable. Parents who need a clear reason for restraining math acceleration in middle school are not getting it.
Instead, they listen, fidgeting, as educational leaders such as San Francisco Schools Superintendent Richard Carranza tell them to trust the educators. This is the Good Housekeeping seal of approval of our teachers, he told 640 parents at a raucous discussion of Common Core math.
Tom Loveless, a Brookings Institution nonresident senior fellow, says the reduction in eighth-grade algebra appears to have made headway nationally. The portion of eighth-graders in advanced math has declined from 48 percent in 2013 to 43 percent in 2015. But that trend is less evident in the Washington area.
[Read Loveless report]
Virginia, not a Common Core state, has no barriers to eighth-grade algebra. Seventy-four percent of Arlington County eighth-graders completed algebra or more in 2015. In Loudoun County, that portion was 80 percent, and in Fauquier County, it was 55 percent.
Suburban Maryland and D.C. schools have adopted the Common Core without, so far, the eighth-grade math change. Mathematically advanced D.C. eighth-graders declined slightly from 41.8 percent in 2013 to 40.3 percent in 2015, but Brian Pick, D.C. schools chief of teaching and learning, said, for students ready to access higher levels of math, for example eighth-graders taking algebra I or geometry, we ensure that happens.
Montgomery County schools spokesman Brian Edwards said that the Common Core eighth-grade math course has not been introduced because we have been rolling up the curriculum over the last few years and this year is the first year that we have implemented the CCSS grade seven math.
Eighth-grade algebra enrollment declined in Montgomery after the district decided some students were not ready for the harder work. But 64 percent of the districts eighth-graders completed algebra or more last year. With better Common Core teaching in earlier grades bolstered by more professional development, Edwards said, the number of students ready for eighth-grade algebra should increase.
Private schools arent reducing eighth-grade algebra. The private BASIS school that is planned for McLean, with the nations most accelerated curriculum, has hired Vern Williams, a legendary algebra teacher, after his long career at Longfellow Middle School in Fairfax County.
Many teachers say they like the Common Cores deeper content and more logical framework. Some of that will probably survive. But ambitious parents such as the ones I knew in Scarsdale are unlikely to tolerate delaying algebra, no matter what the experts say.
A view of American University, in Washington, D.C., where options abound for off-campus educational experiences and internships, a selling point for urban schools. (Evy Mages for The Washington Post)
The iconic image of the American college town as a bucolic New England village is rapidly undergoing a makeover as students are increasingly choosing campuses in cities that are turning their urban cores into centers for eds and meds.
Today, in the 20 largest U.S. cities, a college, university or medical institution is among the top 10 private employers. At least half of those top employers in five cities Washington, Philadelphia, San Diego, Memphis and San Jose are educational and medical institutions.
Even in the District, where enrollment caps have restricted the growth of universities despite growing student demand, attitudes about the role higher education can play in economic development are shifting.
For a long time, higher ed was perceived by some in Washington as an annoyance, said John C. Cavanaugh, president of the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area. But with federal contracting in decline, people are increasingly seeing higher ed as the ticket to the future.
What has long been said about real estate is also true for colleges: Location matters. Students and their parents have typically scrutinized a schools place on a map with regard to the surrounding amenities: Are there enough restaurants and bars? Is it close to the beach or the mountains?
Cover of 'There Is Life After College' by Jeffrey J. Selingo
But a colleges location is about more than amenities and recreational opportunities for students. Even in a virtual age, it matters more than ever to graduates success in the job market. As off-campus experiences increase in importance to a students career, those who attend schools in out-of-the-way places often struggle to find the kinds of internships and work experiences nearby that are necessary to gain the skills employers want.
Last year, when Sweet Briar College initially announced it would close, the colleges president lamented to a reporter that the campus, outside Lynchburg, Va., was 30 minutes from a Starbucks.
As the creative juices and financial rewards of the economy cluster around two to three dozen communities across the country, nearby colleges are poised to be some of the biggest beneficiaries. The knowledge that flows back and forth between the local economy and higher education fuels the growth of intellectual capital for both sides, providing students with unparalleled opportunities for research projects, internships and good jobs after graduation.
We see the city as our laboratory for our students, said Scott Bass, American Universitys provost. Being in D.C. is an enormous advantage for our students in their interactions with faculty, who are very connected to the broader community and to top thinkers.
In Tenleytown, there are daily reminders of how AU uses its location in the nations capital as a key selling point. The universitys shuttle buses are ubiquitous, each emblazoned with a phrase about its students, faculty or alumni. AUs students log more than 100,000 service hours each year, and faculty appear in the news every 24 minutes.
Compared with similarly ranked schools outside of a major city or suburb, urban institutions such as American University have broad advantages tied to their location through the faculty and students they are able to recruit, as well as the internship opportunities they can offer. (Eighty-four percent of AU students intern at least twice before they graduate.)
Kyle Anderson, an AU senior, has completed four internships, most of them during the academic year. Not only was the competition for those intern spots less intense during the school year, the experiences also helped him better prepare for the demands of the workplace, because he learned to juggle a job and classes at the same time.
Author Jeffrey J. Selingo. (Jay Premack Photography)
If I had gone to school outside a city, I couldnt design a schedule that would allow me to work a few days a week on the days in between, he said. I was applying what I learned as I was learning it.
Moodys Investors Service, which examines the financial health of colleges, is particularly bullish on urban institutions. Dennis Gephardt, a vice president at Moodys, specifically cited AU as a school that has benefited from being located in the nations capital and a few blocks from the more prestigious Georgetown University. Rural institutions are doing less well, Gephardt said, because they are not as popular with students.
An important part of going to college is building the foundation of a social and professional network students can use in starting a career. That network can be constructed at a college anywhere through classmates, professors and alumni, but a school in a large community or metro area can give students opportunities to extend the network well beyond the campus. This wider network of contacts can provide even students at less prestigious colleges an extra boost in the job market that the name on the degree alone cant furnish.
To help students and their families locate the places that offer a mix of off-campus learning experiences and post-graduation jobs, the American Institute for Economic Research publishes two lists annually ranking college towns, though they dont get nearly as much attention as the U.S. News & World Report college rankings.
The institutes College Destinations Index ranks the top 75 metro areas based on the four categories that most affect a students off-campus experience: student life, economic health, culture and employment opportunities. The institutes Employment Destinations Index ranks the top 75 metro areas based on eight economic and quality-of-life factors that motivate job seekers to move.
What may interest students most about these two surveys are the cities that ranked high on both lists because they have a vibrant economy that can provide opportunities outside of the classroom, as well as full-time jobs after graduation. The overlap between the two lists includes some of the usual suspects such as Washington and San Francisco, and smaller cities such as Austin and Raleigh, N.C. It also includes Fort Collins, Colo.; Gainesville, Fla.; Ann Arbor, Mich.; and State College, Pa.
About a million recent college graduates cross state lines each year for work and recently seem more often to be migrating west. According to a LinkedIn analysis of its members online profiles, after earning their bachelors degree from universities on the East Coast, nearly three times as many people moved to take jobs in San Francisco than West Coast graduates moved to New York City.
Some cities are natural talent magnets for college graduates. The LinkedIn analysis found that graduates were willing to move the farthest for jobs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Phoenix. Meanwhile, other cities in the LinkedIn study Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Baltimore were able to better retain students after graduation because of the nearby industries that attracted them there in the first place. Those cities also have a high concentration of colleges.
An urban college town is the glue that holds smart and creative people together, said Cavanaugh, the president of the metropolitan higher-education consortium, and thats good for students at the colleges in D.C. and for the regional economy.
College towns and employment hubs
These towns and cities were ranked high by the American Institute for Economic Research for their outside-the-classroom opportunities and as top destinations for students to live and work after graduation.
MAJOR METRO AREAS
1. Boston
2. Washington
3. San Francisco
4. New York
5. Baltimore
6. Seattle
7. Minneapolis-St. Paul
8. Denver
9. Chicago
MIDSIZE METRO AREAS
1. San Jose
2. Austin
3. Raleigh, N.C.
4. Pittsburgh
5. Columbus, Ohio
6. Hartford, Conn.
SMALL METRO AREAS
1. Ann Arbor, Mich.
2. Fort Collins, Colo.
3. Gainesville, Fla.
4. Lincoln, Neb.
5. Trenton, N.J.
6. Huntsville, Ala.
7. Albany, N.Y.
8. Anchorage
9. Omaha
10. Syracuse, N.Y.
11. Honolulu
SMALLEST TOWNS
1. Ithaca, N.Y.
2. Iowa City
3. State College, Pa.
4. Champaign-Urbana, Ill.
5. Columbia, Mo.
6. College Station, Tex.
7. Lafayette, Ind.
8. Bloomington, Ind.
9. Morgantown, W.Va.
Source: American Institute for Economic Research 2015 Employment Destinations Index and 2014-15 College Destinations Index
Selingo is a regular contributor to The Washington Posts Grade Point blog. This article is adapted from his new book, There Is Life After College: What Parents and Students Should Know About Navigating School to Prepare for the Jobs of Tomorrow, to be published April 12 by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins.
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) endorsed Hillary Clinton on Sunday, after months of staying neutral in the presidential contest because of his post as the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Families in Baltimore who are hurting right now need more than the promise of a political revolution, Cummings wrote in an op-ed submitted to The Washington Post.
He added that Clinton not only understands the challenges facing Baltimore and other cities, shes laid out a clear and detailed agenda that meets those challenges head-on.
A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll released last week showed Clinton with a clear lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) in Marylands Democratic primary, but her advantage has narrowed over the past few months. She leads Sanders 55 percent to 40 percent among likely Democratic voters in the state; a Baltimore Sun poll last month showed her pulling ahead by roughly 30 percentage points.
With Cummingss endorsement, every Democratic member of Marylands congressional delegation has backed Clinton before the April 26 primary.
On the Oversight Committee, Cummings was Clintons chief defender against Republicans during their probe into the September 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya. The investigation, he said in the fall after her testimony, was an abusive effort to derail Secretary Clintons presidential campaign. But he held off from endorsing her at the time.
The investigation is ongoing. Cummings said in a statement last week that the effort had shockingly become even more partisan, secretive, and dysfunctional.
Clinton is in Maryland on Sunday for an organizing event in Baltimore with retiring Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D).
Rich Leotta, the father of Montgomery County Police Officer Noah Leotta, urges Maryland lawmakers to pass the Senate-approved version of an ignition interlock bill. (Brian Witte/AP)
Marylands long-stalled ignition interlock bill, which was on the verge of final passage in the General Assembly, has hit a roadblock with the legislature set to adjourn Monday at midnight.
After languishing in the House Judiciary Committee for seven years, the bill to expand the use of ignition locks on drunk drivers vehicles advanced in the House and Senate after the widely publicized death of Noah Leotta, a Montgomery County police officer killed by a drunk driver while on DUI patrol.
The two chambers need to reconcile differences in the bills before the session ends.
Advocates, including Leottas parents, are worried that the legislation could be derailed over a plan by Sen. Robert A. Zirkin (D-Baltimore County) to amend the bill to include a separate Senate measure that would allow punitive damages in civil lawsuits involving drunk drivers.
Chuck Hurley, legislative chair for MADD Maryland, said the group does not oppose the punitive damages bill, which was not voted on by the House Judiciary Committee. But he said the measure should not be added to Noahs Law, which was named for Leotta.
Both bills should stand on their own merit, and Noahs Law is the one that would save lives, Hurley said. Were concerned that [the amendment] could hurt, if not kill, Noahs Law, which would be inexcusable.
For the past two days, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Rich Leotta, Noahs father, have held news conferences pushing for the General Assembly to act on the version of the bill that was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, without the punitive damages bill attached.
I didnt think I would be here with two days left to go, fighting for this tooth and nail all the way, Rich Leotta said Saturday at the State House. It just shouldnt be that way.
Both the House and Senate versions of the bill would require motorists convicted of driving at or above the states legal blood alcohol limit of .08 percent to have an ignition interlock placed on their vehicle.
The Senate bill goes further than the House version by requiring ignition locks for drivers who have failed a breath-alcohol test even before they have been convicted of a crime.
The sooner you get the drunk driver onto an ignition interlock, the greater the chances that it will ultimately modify their behavior and reduce the recidivism rate, said Del. Benjamin F. Kramer (D-Montgomery), who sponsored the bill that was amended in the House but said that he prefers the Senate version.
Del. Kathleen M. Dumais (D-Montgomery) accused Zirkin of legislative blackmail for attaching the punitive damages bill. The Senate is trying to ram this through because they cant get it through the House judicial committee, she said.
Zirkin said he is a huge supporter of ignition interlocks, is committed to Noahs Law and has no intention to do anything to hurt the legislation.
He said the purpose of the punitive damages amendment, which will be offered Monday in conference committee, is to hold drunk drivers responsible civilly as well as criminally and administratively. The more we do on all three, the more chance of changing behaviors, Zirkin said. We intend to fight all the way . . . to ensure that drunk drivers are truly held responsible.
josh.hicks@washpost.com
Eighth in a series on the Democrats seeking the primary nomination in Marylands 8th Congressional District.
Del. Kumar Barve, left, and Sen. Jamie Raskin, right, participate in a forum with fellow candidates. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)
Back when Maryland lawmakers staged an annual satiric review called the Legislative Follies, Del. Kumar P. Barve did his part by donning a turban to become Kumar the Magnificent modeled after the soothsaying Johnny Carson character who could divine answers even before he knew the questions.
The follies are long gone, scrapped by politicians leery of skits backfiring into YouTube embarrassments.
But Kumar Prabhakar Barve, the countrys first state legislator of Indian descent, says hed be comfortable reprising the role, even at the risk of offending.
It was definitely not politically correct, said Barve, who is seeking the Democratic congressional nomination in Marylands 8th District. But I think a person is always at liberty to make light of their own ethnicity.
Barve, 57, a seven-term delegate who represents Rockville and Gaithersburg, looks for opportunities to bring a lighter touch to his politics. In a campaign filled with solemn and earnest discussions of jobs, immigration, redistricting and climate change, he stands out as serious about the work but less so about himself.
Dapper in a dark suit, crisp white shirt and bright, solid-colored tie with matching pocket square, Barve urges on audiences if he hears even a scattering of applause for one of his points.
Its okay. Show the love! Show the love! hell say.
[Barve tells grandfathers story to denounce immigrant bashing]
But he can get serious, as he did early in the campaign, when the anti-immigrant rhetoric of Republican presidential candidates prompted him to produce a video about the struggles of his immigrant grandfather.
Shankar Laxman Gokhale, a scientist for General Electric, lost his U.S. citizenship in 1923, when the Supreme Court ruled that Indian-born immigrants were not considered white. Gokhale won a five-year legal fight to regain citizenship, but only because he had been naturalized before the ban. It would be 1946 before restrictions on South Asians were lifted.
Del. Kumar Barve is running in the April 26 Maryland primary to represent the 8th Congressional District. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)
House majority leader from 2003 to 2014, Barve is the most senior of the three lawmakers in the nine-candidate field, which includes Del. Ana-Sol Gutierrez and State Sen. Jamie Raskin.
He shares nearly all of the social and economic prescriptives favored by other contenders, including a higher minimum wage, protection of abortion rights and aggressive initiatives to roll back planetary warming.
As chairman of the House Environment and Transportation Committee last year, he helped secure a statewide moratorium on fracking. He co-sponsored a bill, signed last week by Gov. Larry Hogan (R), that accelerates the states efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It updates a 2009 version, also co-sponsored by Barve, that required emissions to be 25 percent under 2006 levels by 2020. The new bill mandates a 40 percent cut by 2030.
[Maryland House Speaker Mike Busch endorses Barve for Congress]
An accountant and chief financial officer of a Rockville environmental cleanup company, Barve emphasizes technology and its potential to create jobs. In 1998, he led the establishment of the Maryland Technology Development Corp., intended to foster the transfer of new technology from research labs and universities. A recent study found that the organization led to the creation of 4,300 jobs in 2015, with salaries averaging $74,000 a year.
He grew up in Silver Spring, watching Star Trek and dreaming of joining the space program one day. As a small, skinny kid with a funny name, he was bullied at Rosemary Hills Elementary, which he said went something like this:
Hey Kumar, did you go to church for Easter?
No. Im a Hindu. I dont go to church for Easter.
Bam.
After graduating Paint Branch High School and Georgetown University, he worked for a series of NASA and defense contractors. He entered politics through the Maryland chapter of the abortion rights advocacy group NARAL, which was looking for a treasurer, and made his first run for the House of Delegates in 1990.
His record is not unblemished. He was arrested by Gaithersburg police for driving under the influence in November 2007, pleaded guilty and received probation and a fine.
In 2008, news organizations reported that Barve and his wife, Maryland Workers Compensation Commissioner Maureen Quinn, were receiving homestead property tax credits on two houses they had owned since before they got married: his in Gaithersburg, hers in Annapolis. Barve said that when he declared his Gaithersburg home to be the couples primary residence, he assumed Anne Arundel County would discontinue the credit on the Annapolis property.
State officials cleared the couple of wrongdoing. They live in Annapolis during the annual 90-day legislative session. They sold the Gaithersburg home and rent an apartment in Rockville Town Center.
Far behind the front-runners in campaign cash, Barve is hoping to squeeze out a victory with support from more-moderate Democrats in his central Montgomery base of Gaithersburg and Rockville. In a crowded field, 30 percent of the vote, possibly less, could win. Not even Kumar the Magnificent can say for certain whether that strategy will work.
I happen to think my chances are good if Montgomery County voters get to know who I am, Barve said. I think theyll like me better than anyone else.
Next: David Anderson.
The Prince William County School Board last week reaffirmed its decision to rename Godwin Middle School for a local philanthropist and community leader.
Board members voted unanimously March 2 to rename the Dale City school in honor of George M. Hampton in a compromise that also called for the countys newest elementary school to be named in memory of Kyle R. Wilson, the only Prince William firefighter to die in the line of duty.
Hampton and Wilson had been the two most popular choices for the new elementary schools name, so board member Justin David Wilk (Potomac) introduced the idea of calling the new school Wilson and renaming Godwin. He said it was fitting that the name of Hampton, an African American, would replace the name of the late Mills E. Godwin Jr., a two-term Virginia governor who Wilk said had a segregationist past.
But criticism of the decision came quickly. Godwin School staff members and parents were upset that they had not been notified of the possible name change. Others questioned what the swap would cost, a matter that remained unclear last week.
The controversy prompted school board member Gilbert A. Gil Trenum Jr. (Brentsville) to ask to revisit the issue. He introduced a motion Wednesday that would have retained Godwin and named a future school for Hampton. That move, however, failed on a 5-to-3 vote.
George M. Hampton talks with Stacy Booker, left, after a Prince William County School Board meeting last week. The board reaffirmed its March decision to rename a school after Hampton. (Jonathan Hunley/For The Washington Post)
In their haste to make a decision March 2, Trenum said, board members neglected the Godwin Middle School community, and we didnt give them a voice at the time.
He also said that the board took the naming process, aimed at honoring people, and inserted race into it. Some of his colleagues, however, took issue with Trenums comments.
How dare you say we inserted race, board Vice Chairman Lillie G. Jessie (Occoquan) said. She spent several minutes describing some of the challenges she and others overcame as African Americans. Her husband, Richard, also spoke Wednesday in favor of the March 2 decision.
Board Chairman Ryan Sawyers (At Large) called Trenums move pure political theater. Trenum and board members Alyson A. Satterwhite (Gainesville) and William J. Deutsch (Coles), who voted with him, knew the motion would not pass, yet pursued the plan anyway, Sawyers said.
He said that it is generally expected that individuals for whom schools are named are good people. But Mills Godwin was not a good person, Sawyers said from the dais, his voice rising.
The boards vote followed a lengthy public comment session, in which more than 20 people spoke in favor of maintaining the earlier decision about Godwin. They talked passionately about segregation and the pain and injustice of racism in general.
One of those who came to the lectern was the Rev. Keith A. Savage, pastor of First Baptist Church in Manassas. He noted that Godwin never apologized for his role in Virginias massive resistance to school integration.
He later expressed regret, Savage said, but not an apology.
A few speakers Wednesday criticized the school name change, although they did not specifically praise Godwin, who served twice as governor as a Democrat (1966-1970) and as a Republican (1974-1978). He also created the states community college system.
Mary Jo Stoy, a secretary at Godwin, reminded the board that her community did not know a name change was being considered, so they did not have the option of speaking on the matter at the March 2 meeting.
Godwin Middle School supporters would have been here in full force, said Stoy, who has worked at the school for 37 years.
After Wednesdays vote was recorded, well-wishers surrounded Hampton outside the chamber at the Edward L. Kelly Leadership Center. He said he was happy with the boards decision, and he confirmed that it means even more to him because it includes a repudiation of Godwin.
Of course it does, Hampton said.
Drex Bradshaw, however, when reached Thursday, said he was not pleased about the decision. The 77-year-old retired naval aviator knew Godwin for most of the former governors life, and he still lives in Chuckatuck, a neighborhood of Suffolk city where Godwin grew up.
Bradshaw, a member of the Greater Chuckatuck Historical Foundation, said that political correctness has run amok and that the reasoning for stripping Godwins name from the Dale City school also would call for removing mention of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson from public places because of their misdeeds.
He said that Godwin was not a racist but simply a politician caught up in that eras Virginia Democratic political machine, run by former Virginia governor and U.S. senator Harry F. Byrd Sr.
Godwin was doing what everybody else was doing back in those days, said Bradshaw, adding that it was wrong to chastise Godwin now that he is dead and cannot defend himself.
Christian Alminana/Getty ImagesA daylong series of free events paying homage to the late Lou Reed will be held on July 30 at a number of locations throughout Lincoln Center in New York City. The Bells: A Daylong Celebration of Lou Reed is being curated and co-produced by Reed's widow, avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson, and Hal Willner, who collaborated with Lou on several of his later albums.
The festivities will begin with a group Tai Chi session with Reed's teacher Master Ren Guangyi, also will include film screenings, a sound installation created using Lou's guitars and amplifiers, a reading of the influential songwriter's lyrics by noted actors and artists, and a number of musical performances. The celebration will culminate with an all-star tribute concert at Damrosch Park dubbed "Lou Reed's Love Songs" featuring musicians from a variety of genres followed by a screening of the 2008 concert film Berlin.
In addition, Reed's music will be played over speakers around Lincoln Center throughout the day.
The Bells: A Daylong Celebration of Lou Reed is part of the 2016 Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival. For more information about the event, visit AboutLincolnCenter.org.
Reed died of liver cancer in October 2013. He was 71.
Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Bullying prevention talk for parents on Monday
Bullying prevention trainer Bob Garrity will be on hand Monday at 7 p.m. to offer parents tips, strategies and resources to address bullying.
The free session will be at Benton Middle School, 7411 Hoadly Rd., Manassas.
Staff members of the Prince William County school system will also discuss strategies and policy regarding bullying in schools.
Summer STEM Academys sign-up deadline is April 30
April 30 is the deadline for high school juniors and seniors to apply for a week-long summer STEM Academy at Northern Virginia Community College.
The program, funded by a Perkins grant, will be at the Manassas campus the week of June 20, and at the Alexandria, Annandale, Loudoun and Woodbridge campuses the week of June 27.
Registration is $30. Selected students will be notified by May 10.
For information or to apply, email igomez@nvcc.edu.
Dont get sloppy: Police to focus on litter laws in April
Prince William County police will be enforcing litter laws and concentrating on illegal dumping and unsecured truckload laws throughout the month.
The campaign to raise awareness of littering and related crimes is part of Litter Enforcement Month, a regional effort in support of the Alice Ferguson Foundations Trash Free Potomac Watershed Initiative.
Residents and business owners are also asked to participate in Take Control! Take Care of Your Trash! by notifying county police of community cleanup plans. Information should be e-mailed to crimeprevention@pwcgov.org.
To report trucks with unsecured or uncovered loads, illegal dumping or other violations, call 703-792-6500.
Bluebird Tours to include festivals, Nationals games
Bluebird Tours, a Prince William County Area Agency on Aging program, has planned several bus tours for residents 55 and older.
Tours will include:
All the Way at Arena Stage on Wednesday.
Washington Nationals vs. the Braves on Thursday.
In the Mood: A 1940s Musical Revue at the Weinberg Center for the Arts in Frederick, Md., on April 20.
Jersey Boys at the National Theatre on April 23.
The Virginia International Tattoos performance in Norfolk on April 24.
Dial M for Murder at Olney Theatre Center in Olney, Md., on April 27.
Nationals vs. the Phillies on April 28.
The 89th Shenandoah Apple Blossom Parade and Festival in Winchester on April 30.
Jamie Dailey and the Bluegrass Band in Winchester on May 1.
A Springfest trip to Ocean City, Md., May 4-6.
Wizard of Oz at the National Theatre on May 7.
Nationals vs. the Mets on May 25.
Kinky Boots at the Kennedy Center on June 18.
River Dance at Wolf Trap on June 26.
Bridges of Madison County at the Kennedy Center on July 16.
A Fall in Maine tour, Sept. 28-Oct. 3.
For information or reservations, call Quality Tours at 703-339-0333 or visit pwcgov.org/bluebird.
A toddler died Friday at a hospital in Cumberland, Md., and the childs father was arrested Saturday night and charged in the death, the Maryland state police said.
They said Kyle J. Poindexter, 22, of Cresaptown, Md., was charged in the death of Avery Poindexter, a two-month-old girl. The police said medical personnel at the Western Regional Medical Center in Cumberland found bruises on her head and face.
The child had been left in Kyle Poindexters care while the mother went to work Friday morning, the police said. Later, they said, the father contacted neighbors, saying the child had stopped breathing.
An autopsy was conducted and it was determined that the girl died of a head injury, police said.
They said Poindexter was charged with second degree murder.
On the afternoon of April 8, 2016, investigators from the Combined County Criminal Investigation Unit, Child Protective Services, the Maryland State Police Criminal Enforcement Division and the State Police Homicide Unit were contacted about the death of Avery Poindexter. The infant had been transported to the Western Maryland Regional Health Center in Cumberland earlier that day, where she had been pronounced dead. Medical personnel observed bruises on her head and face and notified police.
The preliminary investigation indicated the childs mother went to work yesterday morning and left the child in the care of her boyfriend and father of the child, Kyle Poindexter. She was notified in the early afternoon that the baby was being transported to the hospital. Investigators learned Poindexter had contacted neighbors, saying he needed help because the baby had stopped breathing. The neighbors began CPR while the father called 911.
Maryland State Police homicide investigators arrested an Allegany County man tonight and charged him with the murder of his infant child.
The accused is identified as Kyle J. Poindexter, 22, of the 12000-block of 6th Avenue, Cresaptown, Md. He is charged with second degree murder, first degree assault, second degree assault, and reckless endangerment. Poindexter is currently awaiting a bond hearing before an Allegany County court commissioner.
The victim is identified as Avery Poindexter, two months old, of the same address. Avery was the newborn daughter of Kyle Poindexter.
Personnel from D.C. Fire and EMS and American Medical Response prepare to transport a patient from a Southeast Washington apartment complex to a nearby hospital on March 28. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
The mother from Northeast Washington complained of stomach pain and had been vomiting. Shed recently had foot surgery, and her daughters were concerned enough to call 911.
D.C. Fire and EMS ambulance Medic 17 and Engine 8 pulled up to a housing project along Interstate 295, where Kianna Lofton, a paramedic, and other city emergency responders checked on the 43-year-old woman.
Lofton pricked the patients finger to test the womans blood-sugar level after team members noted that their patient suffered from high blood pressure, arthritis and diabetes. The woman appeared a bit disoriented but was able to describe her symptoms and request a trip to George Washington University Hospital.
We are going to get you a ride in a brand-new ambulance, Lofton said reassuringly. You will be back bothering your kids before you know it.
The city crew didnt take the woman to the hospital themselves; instead, they waited with her until an ambulance pulled up from the private company American Medical Response (AMR).
Late last month, the District began using the commercial service to transport patients with less-serious symptoms. The new system is intended to free up city medics and ambulances for more dire cases and ease the strain on a department that has struggled to handle a growing number of medical calls.
City paramedics or firefighters still respond to each 911 call and assess each patients condition. In the more serious cases, they transport patients as usual. During the first week, 2,135 people were taken to hospitals; 678 were transported by the private service, or about 32 percent of the overall cases. They represent about half of the patients with less-serious conditions.
D.C. Fire Chief Gregory M. Dean proposed the plan, based on his experience as fire chief in Seattle, as the first step to help the District deal with a system that ran out of available ambulances on a daily basis. In the first week of supplementing the agencys fleet, Dean seemed pleased but remained circumspect in his analysis. He said his staffers are still adjusting and chose to transport hundreds of patients in instances in which the private service could have been used.
My initial assessment is, even though our people have been a little bit shy, is that they are embracing this, Dean said. We are not running out of units as quickly, we are achieving our mission and we have a lot of training going on.
[D.C.s fire chief works to put out hot spots in his agency]
The new system faced a tremendous test on its first day, March 28, when authorities were called to four fires, rescued 17 high school boaters from the Potomac River and then rushed to the U.S. Capitol after police shot a man with a gun.
In a rare twist, the head of the citys firefighters union, often critical of top officials, praised the departments plan and leadership.
Personnel from American Medical Response and D.C. Fire and EMS load a patient onto an ambulance after a call at an apartment in Northeast Washington on March 28. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
Monday was just a really crazy day. Can you imagine if we didnt have those extra units in place? Somewhere, some way, someone would have been waiting for an ambulance, said Ed Smith, the chairman of the union.
It could have been a national embarrassment. Instead, we were there.
Though the start has been promising, fire officials acknowledge there have been some glitches as the effort launches.
AMR ran out of available ambulances six times in the first 10 days of operations, and each episode lasted between four and six minutes, D.C. fire officials said. The contractor operates between 7 a.m. and 1 a.m. daily.
The city and AMR are trying to pin down the data on response times, as preliminary statistics show that the company failed to reach calls by the contracted 10-minute window during 30 percent to 40 percent of calls during the first week.
Some of those apparent delays could be the result of drivers failing to accurately time-stamp their arrivals with dispatchers, and others could be the result of drivers still learning to navigate the city, officials said.
Under the new protocols, certain groups of patients are still transported by the city, even if their illnesses or injuries are not deemed serious. They include anyone under 18, any woman with issues related to pregnancy, anyone in law enforcement custody and anyone who is in need of a mental-health evaluation.
On the first day of the new system, D.C. Fire and EMS Capt. Alex Capece crisscrossed the Anacostia River responding to calls for people suffering from abdominal cramps and issues related to hyperglycemia, and one to help a man who refused to go to a hospital after vomiting during his dialysis treatment. Capeces job is to ensure that medic and firefighter crews arrive at calls and make proper assessments of patient symptoms.
At 29, he is the youngest captain in service, but in eight years on the job he has experienced plenty of instances in which the system has been overwhelmed at times when patients are having their worst day of their lives.
They have just been shot or had just had a heart attack, Capece said. We have been stretched to the limit. Its not fair to the providers on the street or to the residents.
He thinks the addition of private ambulances can help relieve the strain. If we can buy into this, and the provider can do what they are supposed to, this can work, Capece said as he drove on patrol.
At 1:33 p.m. that Monday, his SUV radio echoed a shrill beep, in contrast to the steady drone of addresses and ailments relayed each minute, and a dispatcher declared that the city was in Alpha Hold mode. The call initiates multiple protocols and procedures, but in simple terms it means one thing: The District just ran critically low on the number of available ambulances, and patients with less-serious afflictions will wait longer for transport.
It showed that the system remains stressed at times, but officials note that it now takes a higher call volume to reach the tipping point and that they have the ability to rebound sooner. Its not just the transports that tie up ambulances, they note, but also the time that crews must spend at hospitals.
Having AMR allowed us to recover quicker, Dean said. AMRs response times are getting better every day.
Dean expects the Alpha Hold code to eventually disappear as they find the recipe for the accurate number of medical units needed each day.
Dressed in his blue uniform with his cap cocked sideways, D.C. paramedic Max Storey stood behind his parked ambulance in the middle of the 400 block of Burbank Street SE that Monday afternoon waiting for an AMR ambulance. He had concluded that a 60-year-old woman who was confused from a hyperglycemic episode faced no serious danger. Storey requested the private dispatch at 1:56 p.m.
At 2:03 p.m., the paramedic saw flashing lights turn the corner. He flashed two thumbs up.
Heres AMR already! he shouted. As the two-man crew emerged from the ambulance, Storey complimented them. Hey guys, great response time.
The group immediately got to business as Storey relayed the diagnosis. The fire department crew and the AMR team together moved the patient from her apartment to the ambulance, where she arrived at 2:10 p.m.
Eight minutes later, Storey and his crew were back in service and ready for the next 911 call.
Last month, officials here held a special meeting for contractors interested in taking on a city job estimated at $170,000. Thats not typical. Neither were the concerns of the unidentified attendees:
Could they work at night or in the early morning, when they were least likely to draw protesters? Did they have to post signage with their company name while they worked? Would the city provide security if necessary?
The job was to haul off three Confederate monuments standing on public land, by order of the City Council. The fate of the massive statues has been a topic of increasing debate civil and uncivil in the courts and on streets here for almost a year. The businesses currently considering the job to remove them are understandably wary: In January, the company originally retained to do the work withdrew after the owner, his family and his employees said they had received death threats. Less than a week later, the owners 2014 Lamborghini Huracan, valued at $200,000, was found aflame in a company parking lot in Baton Rouge. Its still unclear whether the events are related. No arrests have been made.
The ugly truth about Confederate memorials
Then in February, the city removed a list of possible replacement contractors from its website after some reported receiving phone calls or emails that promised financial repercussions if they took the job. The city reported the threats to the FBI.
The Jefferson Davis statue stands across the street from First Grace United Methodist Church in New Orleans, on April 3, 2016. It is one of several confederate statues in the city. (Ben Depp/For The Washington Post)
Should Confederate memorials stay or go? Share your thoughts.
While those who want to preserve the monuments continue to press their legal options in federal courts and a recently introduced bill in the state legislature seeks to block the removal, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu is confident that the prominent statues of Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard and Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis will soon be removed from public view.
If were going to have monuments on public spaces, they should represent who we are or who we want to be. . . . Thats as important as who weve been, said Landrieu, noting the city will celebrate its 300th anniversary in 2018. As we try to build a 21st century, knowledge-based city that can compete in an international economy, Im clear that the future does not belong to small, sleepy Southern cities that revere the Confederacy.
Preservation is not synonymous with reverence, says Jim Logan, a New Orleans lawyer who is on the board of the Louisiana Landmarks Society, one of four plaintiffs in a federal suit to block the citys plan.
These monuments have been up there for 100 to 150 years. Theyre historic artifacts. I think few people would say they espouse the beliefs of the citizens of New Orleans today, he said. Its trite to say that we need to remember history so we dont repeat it, but its perfectly correct.
He points to Manzanar National Historic Site in California, the site of a former war relocation center that held 110,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. And when people complained that it was wrong to honor U.S. Cavalry General George Custer by putting his name on the Montana battlefield where his troops killed Native Americans and later died themselves, the park was renamed Little Bighorn National Monument.
Nobodys saying today we agree with what happened [at Manzanar]. Were giving people the opportunity to learn about it and to have a better sense of history, he said. You dont bulldoze Custers last stand. You put up interpretive markers and give a broader treatment of what the historic event there had been.
The Jefferson Davis statue stands across the street from First Grace United Methodist Church in New Orleans, on April 3, 2016. It is one of several confederate statues in the city. (Ben Depp/For The Washington Post)
The symbols of American historys darkest chapter have been getting sharper scrutiny since last June, when nine black parishioners were gunned down during Bible study in their Charleston, S.C., church. The white man charged in those slayings, who confessed to police that he wanted to start a race war, arrayed himself with Confederate symbols in photos he posted online. South Carolina took down the Confederate flag from its statehouse grounds several weeks later, and a heated debate has spread across the country about whether emblems and monuments honor a proud past, bear witness to violence and cruelty or glorify institutionalized slavery.
Last summer, an Alabama bill seeking to change the name of the Edmund Pettus Bridge the Selma site of a bloody confrontation between civil rights protesters and police in 1965 died in the state legislature. The proposal was to replace the former Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leaders name with Journey to Freedom signage. One African American congresswoman, Democrat Terri Sewell, argued against the change, saying it would change the course of history and compromise the historical integrity of the voting rights movement.
In Baltimore, a mayoral task force has recommended removing two Confederate monuments from public parks. One depicts Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The other is a massive sculpture of Roger B. Taney, the fifth chief justice of the United States, who wrote the 1857 Dred Scott majority opinion that people of African descent, free or enslaved, could never become citizens.
In Alexandria, Va., the City Council has asked an advisory group for recommendations on what to do about the nearly 50 streets named after Confederate generals and military leaders, as well as a statue of a Confederate soldier smack in the middle of Washington Street, a major thoroughfare through the historic citys downtown.
In Austin, the University of Texas removed a 1933 statue of Jefferson Davis from its prominent spot outside the campus clock tower in August, after withstanding a legal challenge from the Southern Legal Resource Center, which says its mission includes advocating for the Confederate community.
In New Orleans, which has gone the furthest in removing the monuments, the fight is particularly nasty. The first contractor began the project and pulled out on the same day, according to the letter the companys attorney sent to the city after receiving telephone calls, unkindly name-calling and public outrage . . . as well as other area businesses threatening to cancel existing contracts.
Last week, the words Take em down appeared on two other monuments in New Orleans.
[Which statues of historical figures should we remove? Use this test.]
Opponents say taking them down is not what New Orleanians really want. They point to an October 2015 statewide phone poll on the issue sponsored by two New Orleans media outlets, WWL-TV and the Advocate newspaper. Of 800 registered voters, 68 percent said they opposed the renaming or removal of the monuments. Less than 20 percent supported removal. The rest were undecided.
Most people drive by these monuments every day, and theyre clueless about them. They dont care. This was just meant to be political fodder, said Pierre McGraw, founder and president of Monumental Task Force, a nonprofit group that has maintained the citys statues for 26 years and has collected more than 30,000 signatures on a petition to keep the monuments. Maybe a few people had some issues, but during Carnival, I noticed all these people around Lee Circle and they were screaming but they were screaming for throws from the parade.
Landrieu is the son of former New Orleans mayor Moon Landrieu, known for his role in desegregating local government as the citys leader. Mitch Landrieu said it was also his father who, as a city councilman in the late 1960s, persuaded his fellow elected officials to remove the Confederate flag from the councils chambers.
The mayor said he had begun meeting with small groups of citizens more than a year before the Charleston massacre, prompted by a conversation with childhood friend Wynton Marsalis. The jazz trumpeter asked: Have you ever wondered how these monuments reflect upon the city?
I learned on my fathers knee, he said. Many times, with race, you cant go around it. You cant go over it. You cant go under it. You have walk through it.
The Rev. Shawn Anglim, who helms the diverse First Grace United Methodist Church on the corner of Canal Street and Jefferson Davis Parkway, said he was unaware there was a monument to the Confederate president across the street from his church until 2012, when vandals spray-painted it after Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in Florida. Now, Anglim is a member of Clergy for a United City, a group of more than 175 spiritual leaders who want the monuments to come down.
These symbols are hurtful. They continue to divide people as they were intended to do, and they will keep doing it in subtle and profound ways, he said. In town squares, we gather to unite, not to make some people feel unworthy.
Richard Marksbury, the dean of the School of Continuing Studies at Tulane University, said he doesnt believe that removing the monuments will make a difference.
The swastika is not allowed in Germany. Does that mean theres no anti-Semitism in Germany today? No. The movement goes underground, he said. People will just pick up some new symbol.
If the Confederate monuments are removed, Marksbury asks, which statues and monuments will fall next? One of the citys best known squares is named for President Andrew Jackson, a hero in the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. He was also a slave owner who implemented the Native American removal policy known as the Trail of Tears.
Whats the criteria for whats offensive? Marksbury asked. If we just get a tractor and start pulling everything down, where does it end?
IN THREATENING to cut off billions of dollars in annual money transfers as a means of coercing Mexico to pay for his famous border wall, Donald Trump asserts, We have the moral high ground here, and all the leverage. If only.
If Mr. Trump carried out his threat, the result would be disastrous not just for Mexico but for the United States as well. Millions of Mexicans and Mexican towns and villages, many of them already impoverished, would suddenly be deprived of a critical source of income. Hunger, disease and crime rates would spike; children would be among the most obviously and severely affected.
How does that provide a moral high ground?
As for leverage, its not hard to foresee massive adverse impacts for the United States arising from Mr. Trumps plan, an effort to force his will on a country that has long been a key ally. As every general knows, the other side gets a say in how the battle is conducted.
For starters, seizing money transfers, known as remittances, as Mr. Trump threatens to do, could quickly yield a result contrary to what Mr. Trump seeks: a wave of newly impoverished Mexican immigrants seeking a better life north of the border. That would reverse the downward trend of illegal border crossings in recent years, partly stemming from better economic conditions in Mexico
Contrary to Mr. Trumps rhetoric, Mexico is a friendly neighbor, whose cooperation with Washington on bilateral issues is vital to North American prosperity. Mexicos help in interdiction was key to the Obama administrations efforts to stanch the wave of Central American youths heading toward the United States in summer 2014. Mexican authorities work closely with U.S. counterparts on cross-border trucking and trade, drug and human trafficking, and money laundering, among other issues.
If U.S. officials have not always thought Mexicos efforts were adequate, imagine what level of cooperation they could expect after a Trump administration declared economic war to extort a sum for a wall Mr. Trump prices at $5-10 billion, but other estimates peg as high as $25 billion.
Separately Mr. Trump has vowed to deport every immigrant who is here illegally. It seems problematic to suppose Mr. Trump could block remittances from people who would no longer be in the country to transmit them. Legal experts say it would be difficult for Mr. Trump to use the USA Patriot Act, as he proposes, to block money transfers. And distinguishing transfers by legal immigrants from those by illegal ones would pose massive administrative challenges.
Illegal crossings at the United States southwestern border are near a 40-year low, and since 2009 more Mexican immigrants have been leaving the country than entering it. Whats more, a third of illegal immigrants enter the country as legal ones, then overstay their visas. Mr. Trumps plan to extort Mexico in the vain hope that a white elephant of a wall would solve illegal immigration is fanciful, naive and reckless, aimed more at exciting his base than grappling seriously with problems. But then, so is Mr. Trumps entire campaign.
THERE WAS skepticism last summer when Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced he had agreed in principle to greenlight the Purple Line, the 16-mile light-rail link that would connect Montgomery and Prince Georges counties. Mr. Hogan, a Republican, had made no secret of his doubts about transit generally, or the Purple Lines affordability in particular, and his approval of the project came with a giant asterisk: rather than sticking to an existing plan to contribute $700 million for the projects construction, the governor pared the states commitment to the rail line a multibillion-dollar venture by 75 percent, to just $168 million.
That may have been good politics Mr. Hogan looked frugal to his exurban and rural Republican base, and squeezed more money for the project from mainly Democratic Montgomery and Prince Georges but it raised questions about the long-term financing. Unfortunately, those questions have not been dispelled now that the state, with Mr. Hogans blessing, has given a final thumbs up to a massive, and massively complex, public-private blueprint to build and operate the line.
Its unfortunate because the Purple Line is worth building, and investing in, on its merits. The project provides a suburb-to-suburb transit option to supplement Metros existing hub-and-spokes model and holds the promise of rejuvenating dowdy inside-the-Beltway suburban communities along the lines 21 stations. Construction, now set to begin later this year, could yield an arc of economic opportunity just north of the District.
Yet in shortchanging the Purple Line at the outset, Mr. Hogan shifted costs, and risks, to Marylanders in decades to come, well after he leaves office. Construction by a consortium of private companies is projected to take six years, after which the same firms will operate the line for 30 years. Specifically, the state is obligated to make annual payments to the consortium, for the projects operations and debt service, that will average $150 million, regardless of whether ridership and fare revenue meet targets.
Thats a big bill, and doubtless a bigger one owing to Mr. Hogans upfront stinginess. Almost every transit system requires public subsidies to supplement fare revenue, but Maryland officials, intent on allaying the concerns of Wall Street bond rating agencies, made an extraordinary commitment: For the Purple Lines first 15 years of operations, it will receive fund transfers from the MARC commuter system to help defray the consortiums private debt.
The deal does establish a matrix of incentives, for both the state and the private firms, to build, operate, maintain and promote the Purple Line well and efficiently. The private consortium will bear the risk for construction cost overruns, and must meet rigorous standards for on-time performance, clean stations, and functioning elevators and escalators, or else face financial penalties.
Still, elements of the plan entail robbing Peter to pay Paul, which may well sap the states transportation funding generally and trigger a search for new revenues. Mr. Hogans tightfistedness today could translate into tax increases a decade from now.
WHAT IS the real meaning of the Panama Papers, millions of documents leaked from a law firm, Mossack Fonseca, showing that leaders around the world have stashed their money in offshore accounts? In many cases, offshoring was not illegal. Rather, the practice betrays a lack of confidence in the tax laws and other conditions in the leaders own countries, even as they were supposed to be enforcing those laws and creating better conditions at home. They were guilty in many cases of hypocrisy.
President Xi Jinping of China has implored members of the Communist Party to eschew the trappings of wealth, and he has carried out a campaign to root out corruption and emphasize socialist core values. He might be embarrassed that relatives of top officials in China opened offshore accounts to hold their riches. According to journalists who examined the papers, eight current and former members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the countrys top decision makers, have relatives with secret offshore companies. One of them was Mr. Xis brother in law, Deng Jiagui. In Russia, too, President Vladimir Putin has made a show of urging businessmen and others to bring their offshore property home. But the Panama Papers show that Putins pals, including a mysteriously wealthy professional cellist, were moving hundreds of millions of dollars through offshore accounts.
For some leaders in the West, too, the Panama Papers proved unsettling. The prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, who had promised to defend the nations currency and stressed the importance of keeping money in Iceland, was found to have an offshore company, held for a while with his wife. British Prime Minister David Cameron has been thrown on the defensive about a disclosure that he earned money from an overseas investment trust established by his late father, which he sold before taking office as prime minister. Although there was nothing illegal in it, the optics are bad; Mr. Cameron has been outspoken about fighting international tax evasion.
Note how reactions differed, based on the type of government. In Iceland, a massive street protest by outraged citizens led the prime minister to resign. In Britain, Mr. Cameron is being openly challenged by other politicians. And in China? Censors went to work not only blacking out any mention of the reports about Mr. Xi but blocking any online search for brother-in-law lest it reveal news of Mr. Dengs holdings. In Russia, Mr. Putin said your humble servant was not named in the documents so there is nothing to talk about. He added that leak of the Panama Papers was an American plot against Russia. In this connection, attempts are made to weaken us from within, make us more acquiescent, Mr. Putin declared, ever the paranoid.
The Panama Papers have made an important contribution to accountability. In democratic societies, this means that leaders answer for their actions. In China and Russia, they try to conceal the truth.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, seen here at a Nov. 17, 2015 event in Richmond, hasnt spoken publicly about the latest Supreme Court nomination. (Mark Gormus/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP)
The worry these days on the eight-member Supreme Court is finding five votes on a controversial issue. But so far the justices have been unanimous in staying out of the political upheaval that has engulfed their court.
And they received a stern warning last week from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) to keep it that way.
It seems beyond question that Judge Merrick Garland is respected by the justices and a friend to many; the next step for the bright young lawyers who clerk for him at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is often a coveted move down the street to a spot in someones chambers at the marble palace at 1 First St. NE.
[Merrick Garlands instinct for the middle could put hin in influential spot]
And there is little debate that, as Justice Elena Kagan noted last week, theres a reason that courts work better with an odd number of judges. Stalemates and tie votes already have become an issue in the wake of Justice Antonin Scalias death in February.
But so far, at least, no justice has been willing to publicly comment on Garlands qualifications for moving from the second most important court in the land to the first, nor to render an opinion about the Republican Senates refusal to consider President Obamas nominee in this election year.
Before Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke and answered questions at St. Johns College in Santa Fe, N.M., last week, for instance, audience members were told not to ask about either Garland or the nomination process.
Kagan also refused to talk about her old friend at an appearance at New York University Law School. As dean of Harvard Law School, their shared alma mater, Kagan had lauded Garland and ribbed him about making it to the bench before she did.
[Merrick Garlands record of respectful disagreements]
She had the last laugh, of course, but has demonstrated her regard for Garland by hiring eight of his former clerks since she joined the Supreme Court in 2010.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer has shooed away questions about the nomination process in appearances since Scalias death, and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told students at Georgetown Law School that the court has had an even number of justices before and we will deal with it.
It is the justices natural inclination to try to stay out of the political fray, of course. But it is not unheard of for them to venture an opinion about a nominee. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for instance, came to Sotomayors defense before she was confirmed in 2009.
But University of Chicago law professor David A. Strauss, who interviewed Obama last week as Obama made the case for Garland, said the silence from the justices is not surprising.
I think their inclination would be to avoid doing anything that takes sides in this political fight, Strauss said.
That made the unusual preemptive warning from Grassley even more surprising.
He was reacting to remarks that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. made before Scalias death about the nomination process.
[Political wars damage Supreme Courts reputation, Roberts says]
Roberts lamented the publics growing perception of the court as a political body, and the chief justice said the blame started with the Senate confirmation process.
When you have a sharply political, divisive hearing process, it increases the danger that whoever comes out of it will be viewed in those terms, Roberts said in a speech to law students just before Scalias death.
If the Democrats and Republicans have been fighting so furiously about whether youre going to be confirmed, its natural for some member of the public to think, well, you must be identified in a particular way as a result of that process, he said.
Roberts noted that the last three nominees Alito, Sotomayor and Kagan, all of whom he called highly qualified were confirmed on largely party-line votes.
That suggests to me that the process is being used for something other than ensuring the qualifications of the nominees, said the 61-year-old chief justice.
Roberts has been silent since Scalias death and Garlands nomination, and in his speech on the Senate floor last week, Grassley warned the chief justice should keep quiet on the subject.
Grassley, 82, and running for what would be his seventh term in the Senate, noted a New York Times column in which a law professor said it would be an important move for Roberts, nominated by President George W. Bush, to call for the Republican Senate to make the court whole.
Thats a political temptation the chief justice should resist, Grassley said.
In his criticism, Grassley said, Roberts has it exactly backwards.
The confirmation process doesnt make the justices appear political, Grassley said. The confirmation process has gotten political precisely because the court has drifted from the constitutional text and rendered decisions based instead on policy preferences.
Oh and by the way, Grassley said: Many of my constituents believe, with all due respect, that the chief justice is part of the problem.
[Obamacare threatens John Roberts dream of a nonpartisan court]
Grassley didnt mention which of Robertss votes reflected political considerations, not legal ones, but apparently he is among the conservatives who feel let down by the chief justices votes on the Affordable Care Act.
Obama was partly to blame, too, Grassley said. Not surprisingly, [the courts] approval rating has dropped most drastically in recent years following the presidents appointment of Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, he said.
The confirmation of Sotomayor and Kagan to replace Republican appointees David Souter and John Paul Stevens, respectively, have not changed the balance of power on the court that would accompany Garlands ascension to Scalias seat.
It would make a court where Democratic presidents have installed five liberals, while Republican presidents have named the four who are most conservative.
But the next president is likely to make a mark on the court as well, and Obama warned Republicans to think of the future if they recapture the White House.
So now the Democrats say, well whats good for the goose is good for the gander," Obama said, adding, If different parties control the White House and the Senate during that period of time, youre not going to get any appointments done which is a disaster for the courts, generally.
Obama, of course, is an imperfect messenger. As a senator, he voted against Roberts, who he said was qualified for the court but lacked empathy for the little guy. And he was part of an effort to deny a vote on Alito.
He says now that he regrets that decision.
Five years after a U.N.-backed force began to push al-Qaeda-linked militants out of their strongholds, Somalia boasts clear signs of progress. Large swaths of the country have been reclaimed. Streets, beaches and markets have come back to life in once forsaken cities. The United States has promised to rebuild its long-shuttered embassy.
But as Somalia approaches a critical period, with parliamentary and presidential elections due by August, those gains are showing signs of reversal.
The al-Shabab rebels are resurgent, President Hassan Sheik Mohamud said in an interview last week. He and other senior officials acknowledged that Somalias government is still unable to provide security or public services to regions that have been liberated. The government must choose between giving its soldiers wages or weapons, he said.
The Somali government cannot afford to pay the soldiers and at the same time to purchase lethal equipment, Mohamud said. This is the dilemma that we have.
Western officials say they have provided ample aid but that much of it is diverted through corruption and that the Somali government must do a better job of constructing a security force that fits within its budget.
Somalia has been racked by near-constant conflict for the past quarter-century, resulting in chaos that provided fertile ground for the rise of al-Shabab in 2005. The United States has since spent more than $2 billion on Somalia, sending military trainers and killing militants, including two al-Shabab commanders, in drone strikes. The White House sees the group as one of its top concerns in sub-Saharan Africa, in part because its attacks extend beyond Somalia to civilian targets in neighboring Kenya, including the bloody strike on Nairobis upscale Westgate Mall in 2013.
African Union forces led an operation to push al-Shabab from Mogadishu in 2011 and went on to launch a series of offensives that prompted the militants to withdraw unilaterally from much of the territory they occupied.
But those African Union forces, which are supported by the United Nations and known by the acronym AMISOM, have largely remained confined to their bases over the past year, unwilling and unequipped to conduct offensive operations. Al-Shabab militants have encircled numerous population centers, cutting off supply lines and often moving into residential areas at night.
AMISOM and the Somali national army have remained in the barracks, Mohamud said, speaking in English in his office in a hilltop compound. The operations were less. Thats what gave space to al-Shabab.
Signs of the groups resurgence can be seen every day. Hours before a Washington Post reporter interviewed Mohamud on April 5, a member of parliament was gunned down in the capital. The day before, two intelligence agents were killed.
The enemy is more daring and more opportunistic, Foreign Minister Abdusalam Omer said. Were working hard on stabilization, but for the Somali government its like building a plane and flying it at the same time.
The Somali security forces, which are eventually supposed to assume responsibility for the fight, remain weak and disorganized, according to Western and Somali officials. On paper, the army has 22,000 troops, but analysts say there could be as few as 10,000. Last year, the U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea wrote in a report that the army hierarchy has systematically inflated their troop numbers in order to secure greater funding for salaries and rations.
A European Union training mission was recently halted for several weeks because trainers worried that Somali troops who hadnt been paid might hold them hostage to bring attention to their plight.
Many of the soldiers are allied with Somalias numerous clans, with varying loyalty to the central government. Outside the military, regional fighting forces also battle al-Shabab in Somalias semi-autonomous regions.
How do we put them together? Mohamud asked about the groups of pro-government fighters. Will Shabab wait while we integrate these men and then send them back to the battlefield?
The problem goes beyond integrating clan-based groups. The military lacks arms, vehicles and bases.
Maj. Gen. Mohamed Sheik Hamud, the countrys police commissioner, described the situation facing the security forces in stark terms. Its like the police are in Guantanamo Bay, he said. We send them to these newly liberated districts, but theyre surrounded. They cant go anywhere.
We dont have the resources
Some foreign donors have grown frustrated with the militarys dysfunction. The United States provides a $100 monthly stipend to 7,000 Somali soldiers in theory a supplement to their wages, but it is often their only income.
Theres now very serious rethinking in donor capitals about whether support for the army is appropriate, said Matt Bryden, a Somalia expert and the founder of Sahan Research, a Nairobi-based research organization. For the first two to three years of this [Mohamuds] administration, there was almost blind support. Now theres recognition that its not going to work.
As it did years ago, al-Shabab is using children to fight on its behalf. Some of them are forcibly recruited. Others join willingly because the extremists are the only ones offering education or jobs.
We dont have the resources to provide what [young people] need, said Mohamud, a former academic and UNICEF employee who was elected in 2012.
Outside his office were pictures of Somalias former leaders, including Mohamed Siad Barre, a military dictator who ruled from 1969 to 1991, when he was overthrown and Somalia disintegrated. His heavy-handed rule inflamed clan and regional rivalries, leading to fractures still visible today.
When the state collapsed, people got allegiance to their clans, Mohamud said. Now, convincing them to realign themselves with the state, handing over their weapons . . . this is what were working very hard to do.
Somalia experts say that while the country improves its security forces, it must simultaneously work on reaching a political settlement with al-Shabab. That is essential because al-Shababs freedom to operate depends in large measure on its ability to exploit long-standing clan dynamics, mistrust among the Somali people and the lack of economic opportunity, said a U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly.
The U.S. government has been reluctant to send troops to Somalia since the Black Hawk Down operation that left 18 Americans dead in October 1993. Instead, it has conducted one of its largest drone programs, welcomed by the Somali government.
I heard that in Pakistan and Afghanistan the experience of the drones was not good, Mohamud said. But here they are precise, and we are informed of them before.
A strike last month killed 150 militants, according to the Pentagon. But the drone program hasnt stopped al-Shabab from regenerating.
Hamud, the police commissioner, offers the example of Jalalaqsi, the town in southern Somalia where Mohamud was born. It was liberated by troops from Djibouti in 2014. But the national police could afford to send only 10 officers. They were dropped off by a U.N. helicopter, he said, but have little ammunition or logistical support.
Now theyre totally neglected. They cant move anywhere, he said. You cant rebuild a country like that.
Read more:
How a breakaway region of Somalia hopes to build a new country
U.S. Special Operations forces launch helicopter raid in Somalia
Somalia banned Christmas and New Years even though it celebrates neither
The terrorists who carried out the March 22 attacks on the Brussels airport and metro initially planned an attack on France instead, the Belgian federal prosecutor announced Sunday.
A cell of terrorists affiliated with the Islamic State largely conceived and executed Novembers attacks on Paris from the Belgian capital, where many of them were reared. According to the prosecutors office, members of this cell were apparently surprised by the speed of the progress in the ongoing investigation and decided to attack locally instead.
Despite the speed of that investigation, though, the terrorists some of whom were known to the Belgian government were able to kill 32 people and injure hundreds more in an impromptu operation four months after attacks that killed 130 in Paris.
The Brussels attack came four days after the arrest of Salah Abdeslam, a principal suspect in the logistics behind the Paris assault. Sundays revelations confirm what many suspected: Arrests in the days before the Brussels attacks prompted a quick and desperate terrorist retaliation.
Exact details of the abandoned French attack remain unclear, and prosecutors declined to give further information.
Sundays announcement came two days after Belgian authorities arrested Mohamed Abrini and three other suspects, all of whom were charged with participating in terrorist murder and the activities of a terrorist group.
Abrini, a 31-year-old Belgian citizen of Moroccan origin, is a link between the Paris and Brussels attacks, one of many that investigators have uncovered in recent weeks.
Surveillance footage has identified him as the driver of a rented vehicle that transported terrorists back and forth across the French-Belgian border in the days before the Paris attacks. On Saturday, he admitted to police that he was the man in the hat at Brussels Airport in Zaventem, walking beside two accomplices who detonated suicide bombs March 22 inside the terminal.
Further footage from the morning of the attack shows Abrini walking out of the airport toward the city, where he remained at large until Friday.
His testimony could provide further insight into the network that planned attacks in Paris and Brussels. The extent to which that network remains active is unknown.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk on Sunday announced his resignation, calling for the formation of a new government as Kiev endures its worst political crisis since the Euromaidan revolution of 2014.
The publics patience has grown thin with Yatsenyuk, as well as with President Petro Poroshenko, because of a struggling economy, stalled reforms and entrenched corruption. The ruling coalition has fractured as public support hits new lows.
As Western leaders have openly signaled their exasperation with the political logjam in Kiev, the choice of Yatsenyuks replacement is seen as a bellwether for the fate of Ukraines stalled reform program. Candidates for his successor include Vladimir Groysman, the parliamentary speaker and a close political ally of Poroshenko, and Natalie Jaresko, the technocrat finance minister born to Ukrainian immigrants in Chicago and favored by foreign investors.
Yatsenyuk, who narrowly survived a no-confidence vote in February, said in a weekly televised address that he would tender his resignation on Tuesday to end an artificially created political crisis in Kiev. He said that a new government must be selected immediately to avoid the destabilization of the executive branch during a war, a reference to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
The desire to change one person blinded politicians and paralyzed their political will for real change, Yatsenyuk said. The process of changing the government turned into a mindless running in place.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk in 2014. He announced his resignation Sunday, calling for the formation of a new government . (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)
A veteran pro-European politician who charmed Western officials in fluent, idiomatic English, Yatsenyuk had long predicted his own demise. He called himself a political kamikaze a week after the Maidan revolution that unseated President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, predicting widespread anger over the austerity measures needed to secure a bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
Two years later, Yatsenyuks opponents in parliament were accusing him of bowing to corrupt interests, including oligarchs close to the pre-revolutionary government. Ahead of the abortive no-confidence vote, Poroshenko indicated that Yatsenyuk should resign, saying that to restore public trust, Therapy is no longer sufficient. Surgery is needed.
In his speech Sunday, Yatsenyuk signaled support for Groysman, the parliamentary speaker, noting that the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko party had nominated him to lead the new government. Groysman is widely seen as the front-runner for the position. On Sunday, Poroshenko said that he expects the parliament to announce a new coalition Tuesday.
Poroshenko had suggested that Jaresko, a former investment banker, was also a prospective candidate for the prime ministers post. Her supporters thought she could lead a government that would sidestep the tumult of partisan politics and entrenched interests to pass a widespread reform package.
In my opinion, only a technocratic government can take on the tasks in this political situation meaning a team . . . not subservient to any oligarchs or friends of politicians, which doesnt have future political ambitions, Jaresko wrote in a Facebook post in March, confirming her readiness to head the new government. I am ready to put together such a team which can be able to right now work for the interests of the entire country all of its citizens, not separate business groups.
The political crisis began with the resignations of a number of prominent reform officials, who claimed that entrenched interests loyal to Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk were involved in corrupt schemes.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry will focus on the vision of a nuclear-free future while he is here and will not apologize for the atomic bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II, killing 140,000 people, a U.S. official said Sunday.
Kerry arrived in Hiroshima on Sunday morning to attend a meeting of foreign ministers of the Group of Seven countries, who discussed the war in Syria and the refugee crisis sweeping Europe. On Monday, the diplomats will go as a group to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and lay a wreath at an altar commemorating the conflagration.
Later in the day, he is expected to comment on the experience of visiting the museum, which vividly depicts the bombings effect on the city and its inhabitants.
A State Department official, speaking with reporters who are accompanying Kerry, said that the secretary of state will not specifically apologize for the bombs that the United States dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki but that he will address the human dimensions.
If youre asking whether the secretary of state came to Hiroshima to apologize, the answer is no, said the official, speaking anonymously under rules for briefing reporters. If youre asking whether the secretary and I think all Americans and all Japanese are filled with sorrow at the tragedies that befell so many of our countrymen, the answer is yes.
Schoolchildren will be on hand to witness the wreath-laying ceremony after the museum tour.
The event is not window dressing, the official said. The strong view of the Japanese and the strong view of the United States is that any visit to Hiroshima should be a forward-looking visit, he said. Our collective focus is on the world were trying to create, not the world we have left behind.
No decision has been made about whether President Obama will visit Hiroshima next month when he comes to Japan for a meeting with leaders of the G-7 countries. White House officials are carefully looking at the reception of Kerrys visit, and it is expected to play a role in their decision. But the official suggested there are no fundamental obstacles.
The issue of whether or not a senior U.S. government official has the fortitude, whatever it takes, to come to Hiroshima has been answered circa 7 oclock this morning when John F. Kerry came to Hiroshima, the official said. This is not a huge, let alone an insurmountable, problem for the United States.
Read more
Non-proliferation crusader Obama ponders a visit to nuclear ground zero: Hiroshima
As their numbers dwindle, Hiroshima survivors have a plan to keep memories alive
What it was like to survive the atomic bombing of Hiroshima
Gunfire broke out in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis early on Nov. 18 as police pursued suspects from the terror attacks on Nov. 13. Witnesses documented the flood of police into the historic suburb as the raid grew. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
Gunfire broke out in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis early on Nov. 18 as police pursued suspects from the terror attacks on Nov. 13. Witnesses documented the flood of police into the historic suburb as the raid grew. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
All of Europe was looking for Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the planner of the Paris attacks, when two women approached his roadside hiding place, guided by the voice of someone secretly watching from a distance and giving directions by phone.
Go forward. Walk. Stop, the voice said. He can see you. Hes coming.
It was 9:30 p.m., two days after the bombings and shootings in November that left 130 people dead. France had closed its borders and launched a massive manhunt. But Abaaoud emerged from behind a bush and strolled toward the women as if there were nothing unusual about this rendezvous.
One of the women, Abaaouds cousin, jumped into his arms, saying, Hamid, youre alive!
But her companion, who had come without knowing who they were to meet, felt a shudder of recognition. Id seen him on TV, she later told police, referring to videos from Syria that showed Abaaoud dragging dead bodies behind a truck.
The meeting, which was described by the woman in an interview and confirmed in French investigative files obtained by The Washington Post, set in motion a three-day sequence that culminated in a raid on an apartment in Saint-Denis, north of Paris. Abaaoud, 28, was killed in that operation by authorities who subsequently learned that he was plotting additional attacks.
[The hunt for Abaaoud: A top suspect, a raid, a deadly siege]
His plans were derailed largely because of his decision to involve two women whose impulses when faced with the choice of trying to help him or stop him were immediately at odds.
His cousin, a troubled 26-year-old woman named Hasna Aitboulahcen, helped Abaaoud elude authorities for days and died with him in the Saint-Denis apartment, where one of the cornered militants detonated a suicide bomb.
The other woman, who had served as a surrogate mother to Aitboulahcen for several years, secretly called and met with police, providing information that probably helped authorities stave off another wave of attacks.
The relationship between the two women in many ways reflects broader tensions in Muslim communities across Europe over interpretations of their religion, degrees of loyalty to their countries and the insidious appeal of the Islamic State.
In a Nov. 18 news conference, Francois Molins, the Paris prosecutor, said that a key witness helped identify Abaaoud on French territory and that investigators were led to this apartment by that crucial source. French police declined to elaborate or comment further on the case.
But until now, the public has been unaware that the critical tip in the hunt for Abaaoud came from a Muslim one of millions who now face a backlash in Europe fueled by anger over the attacks in Paris and Brussels, as well as fear and resentment of a rising tide of refugees.
Its important the world knows that I am Muslim myself, the woman said, citing that as a reason for being willing to speak to The Post. Its important to me that people know what Abaaoud and the others did is not what Islam is teaching.
The case also provides insights into the Islamic States haphazard approach to exporting terror. Abaaoud taunted Western security agencies about his ability to move between Syria and Europe for two years without getting caught. He led the planning of a multistage attack, using cellphones to coordinate the strikes and to make sure that his subordinates followed through. He is believed to have fired his own weapon into packed Paris restaurants before taking the subway to survey the carnage at the Bataclan theater.
[How officials may have missed their chance to stop Paris terror suspects]
But for all of his preparations, he appears to have had no plan for the aftermath and no misgivings about pulling family members into his violent wake. After hiding among roadside shrubs, he enlisted Aitboulahcen, long enamored of him, to help procure food, clothes and a better place to plot his next move.
This account is drawn from dozens of French investigative documents obtained by The Post. The surviving woman, in her 40s, discussed her involvement in the case but asked not to be identified, citing concern for her safety as security officials across Europe continue searching for Islamic State operatives.
Abaaoud told the women that dozens of Islamic State militants had accompanied him into Europe by hiding among streams of refugees. Another of his suspected accomplices in the Paris attacks, Mohamed Abrini, was arrested by authorities in Belgium on Friday.
The attacks in Brussels last month were carried out by remnants of a network assembled by Abaaoud. A native of Belgium, he is believed to have been a key figure in the Islamic States external operations branch, recruiting and grooming new arrivals in Syria for attacks against the West.
From cocaine to the niqab
Abaaoud and Aitboulahcen came from similarly checkered backgrounds. By his late teens, Abaaoud had been expelled from a prestigious school, become involved in neighborhood gangs and been convicted of a series of small-time crimes.
Aitboulahcen spent much of her childhood in a foster home that provided an escape from an abusive mother and absent father, according to the French files. Her brief adulthood was marked by binges on drugs and alcohol, offset by halting attempts to adhere to strict interpretations of her Muslim faith.
[Inside the surreal world of the Islamic States propaganda machine]
She lived with me from 2011 to 2014, on and off, the woman who sheltered Aitboulahcen said in an interview. She would run away for two weeks, come back a month, over and over again. She took a lot of drugs, mostly cocaine, and drank too much.
But Aitboulahcen could also be endearing. She helped with chores, expressed heartfelt gratitude to her adopted family and entertained them with stories about her Paris nightlife. She would always make us laugh, the friend said.
In 2014, Aitboulahcens turbulent life appeared to take a new turn. She began expressing more strident views about religion and took to wearing a niqab a garment worn by Muslim women to cover all but their eyes.
She also began chatting with someone in Syria using the smartphone application WhatsApp, according to transcripts of the friends interview with French counterterrorism investigators. Aitboulahcen didnt reveal the identity of her correspondent to her friend, but her affection for her cousin and the timing of his trips to Syria make it likely that the message exchanges were with Abaaoud.
The two whose mothers are sisters grew up in separate cities but appear to have shared a romantic attachment. Aitboulahcen told friends at times that she expected one day to marry Abaaoud, who was two years older, although its not clear that the prospect of such a marriage ever moved beyond daydream status.
Abaaoud made his first trip to Syria in 2013 along with six other militants from Belgium, part of a wave of thousands of foreign fighters who left Europe to fight alongside al-Qaeda or the Islamic State.
[9 young men and their paths to terror in Paris]
Abaaoud had no special military skill but was propelled up the Islamic States ranks by a brash personality and a sadistic streak that seemed perfectly suited to the ultra-violent and image-obsessed militant group.
In March 2014, Abaaoud posted a video on Facebook that showed him on the front line of a battle in Syria, saying, It gives me pleasure from time to time to see blood of the disbelievers run because we grew up watching the blood of Muslims being spilled in the whole world on TV.
Weeks later, a more disturbing video surfaced that caught the attention of French authorities. It showed him driving a truck and dragging mutilated corpses across a dusty field.
Before, we towed jet skis, motorcycles and trailers filled with gifts, he said from the trucks cabin, looking into the camera. Now, thank God, we are following His path while towing disbelievers who are fighting us.
Aitboulahcen reacted with apparent pride when the footage aired on French news, and she searched for the full video online to show it to her surrogate family, telling her older friend that her Belgian cousin was in Syria waging war.
Im meant to marry him, she said, according to the files.
Although Aitboulahcen often talked of planning a trip to Syria, she never went. Instead, she spent four months last year in Morocco, where she said she met another marriage prospect, before returning to France in October and abandoning those wedding plans.
By then, Abaaoud was back in Europe and in the final stages of plotting the Nov. 13 attacks on a Paris stadium, concert hall and crowded restaurants. There is no indication in the documents that he had any contact with his cousin.
After Paris
Aitboulahcen seemed unfazed by the bloodshed that Friday evening in the fall. Amid mass public mourning, as medical teams were still treating victims and collecting bodies, Aitboulahcen asked her friend to help straighten her hair so that she could go out.
Theyre all unbelievers, she said of the victims, her friend recalled. Nothing can happen to me.
Her detached manner remained intact until Sunday evening, when Aitboulahcen and members of her surrogate family returned home after a walk through Saint-Denis. About 8:30 p.m., Aitboulahcens cellphone lit up with an unfamiliar number prefaced by the country code 32, which corresponds to Belgium.
She asked who had given the caller her number. When the caller replied that he was calling on behalf of her cousin, Aitboulahcen at first scoffed and hung up, only to watch the phone light up again.
Im not going to explain everything. You saw what happened on TV, the caller said, telling her that her cousin needed help finding a place to hide for no more than a day or two.
Suddenly, Aitboulahcen seemed elated. Tell me what I have to do, she said, according to the account her friend gave to authorities: She was happy. She was saying, I hope its not a joke!
Although the importance of that call seems obvious in hindsight, the friend told police that in that moment she and Aitboulahcen were not sure which relative was reaching out for help. In early 2014, Abaaoud abducted his 13-year-old brother and took him to Syria. Given how much attention Abaaoud attracted among European security services, both women thought it unlikely that he could have entered France and that perhaps it was the younger cousin who needed to be rescued.
That scenario unraveled when Abaaoud stepped out of the bushes and into the dim streetlight. He told Aitboulahcen that he would give her 5,000 euros to help him find a place to hide and to pay for new suits and shoes for himself and an accomplice who remained hidden and was probably the voice on the phone.
As her initial fear gave way to anger, the friend said, she began pressing Abaaoud to admit his involvement in the attacks and to explain why he had harmed so many innocent people. Abaaoud seemed not to mind the questions, saying that his religion compelled him to tell the truth.
He said we were lost sheep and that he wanted to blow us all up, the friend said in the interview with The Post, which took place last week in France. He said that dozens of others from the Islamic State had returned to Europe with him and that the violence Paris had just witnessed was nothing compared with what would come next.
The three walked toward the car, where Abaaoud appeared to reach for a weapon when he saw a male figure the friends husband behind the wheel. After being reassured, Abaaoud then climbed into the rear seat and rode with the group for about 150 yards. Then, abruptly, he changed his mind and asked to be let out.
As the others drove off, Aitboulahcens phone rang again. You can tell the little couple that if they talk, my brothers will take care of them, the voice said. When Aitboulahcen laughed while relaying the threat, the friends husband slapped her across the face.
[He is a barbaric man the man behind the Paris attacks]
One of Abaaouds suspected conspirators in the Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, also seems to have had no escape plan on the night of the attacks and sought help from relatives. A cousin he called refused and asked whether he had heard about the attacks and citywide lockdown.
Abdeslam answered, Oh yeah, attacks, huh? The cousin then turned her phone off.
When they returned from the roadside meeting, the friend poured glasses of wine for Aitboulahcen in an attempt to get her drunk so that she would call the police, the friend said. But the plan didnt work, and the others in the house were too frightened to act on their own.
I was scared because I thought if the terrorist knew Id come forward, theyd kill me, she said.
But the next day, when Aitboulahcen briefly left the house, the friend called an emergency number posted by the French authorities. Although she made the call about 2 p.m., it took more than three hours for her to hear back from Frances counterterrorism squad, the SDAT.
The friend spent much of that Monday evening at the units headquarters providing a detailed account of the encounter with Abaaoud, a conversation detailed in a transcript obtained by The Post. When she returned home, she told Aitboulahcen that she had been out to dinner and a movie.
For the next 24 hours, the pursuit of Europes most-wanted terrorism suspect seemed to enter an eerily suspended state. No arrest or high-profile raid followed the friends visit to police.
But French security services were quietly mobilizing. The documents indicate that they were already monitoring Aitboulahcens phone and caught her actively seeking accommodation for Abaaoud and his accomplice. Vehicles with eavesdropping equipment passed through Saint-Denis, where Aitboulahcen found a landlord willing to rent an apartment on short notice for 150 euros.
Abaaoud was still at large Tuesday night as Aitboulahcen left her surrogate family for the final time. She had bought the shoes and suits her cousin wanted and indicated that she also needed to deliver 750 euros in cash.
As she departed, it seemed like she was saying goodbye, the friend said in the interview. She told me that she loved me, that Id been a great mother to her, that I would go to heaven.
But the friend asked whether she could retrieve Aitboulahcen later that night, and in a measure of the trust that remained between them, Aitboulahcen gave an address in Saint-Denis coordinates the friend then relayed to the police.
As Aitboulahcen and the two fugitives arrived at the apartment about 10 p.m., they told the landlord they had been tossed out of their home by their mother, asked for water and the direction of Mecca, and said they just wanted to sleep two or three days.
[In a neighborhood under siege, it seemed like real war]
Video of the Tuesday raid captured a female voice pleading, I want to leave and Can I come out? Let me out! before an explosion ripped through the apartment. French authorities initially said that Aitboulahcen detonated a suicide bomb, but they later abandoned that claim.
Her body had been pierced by a bolt, according to a detailed description of the scene in the French files. But that does not explain the death, investigators wrote. Instead, authorities concluded that Aitboulahcens death was due to mechanical asphyxia chest compression, meaning she was crushed after the explosion inside the collapsed apartment.
She left a small collection of belongings at her friends house, including clothes, handbags and photos. The friend said she and her husband have struggled with guilt and feel responsible for Aitboulahcens death.
The woman was placed in protective custody after the Saint-Denis raid, but she said she worries about her safety. I no longer feel safe when I walk around, she said as she made her way toward her car after the interview. Abaaoud said they had many operatives. . . . It could be anybody around here.
Virgile Demoustier in Paris and Steven Rich and Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.
Read more:
The Islamic States strategy to cause death and destruction in Europe
The mystery surrounding the Paris bomber with a fake Syrian passport
Failure to stop Paris attacks reveals fatal flaws at heart of European security
PHILIPPINES
18 soldiers killed in clash with militants
At least 18 soldiers were killed in fierce day-long fighting with Islamist extremists in the southern Philippines on Saturday in the largest single-day government combat loss this year, officials said.
At least 52 other soldiers were wounded in the clashes with Abu Sayyaf militants and allied gunmen in the hinterlands bordering the towns of Tipo Tipo and al-Barka on the island of Basilan, three senior military officials said. They said at least four militants were killed.
Government forces were deployed to kill or capture Abu Sayyaf commander Isnilon Hapilon, who has publicly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and has been hunted for years for his alleged involvement in several terrorist attacks, the officials said.
Washington has offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Hapilons capture and prosecution.
Associated Press
British Prime Minister Cameron is facing questions concerning his financial affairs after revelations in the so called Panama Papers. (Str/EPA)
BURMA
100 political prisoners freed, but two jailed
More than 100 political prisoners in Burma, also known as Myanmar, have been freed under an amnesty ordered by the countrys new de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, as her first official act.
The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Saturday cited police as saying that 113 political detainees were freed across the country. Their freedom came along with a general amnesty for ordinary convicts ahead of Burmas traditional New Year festival, often the occasion for prisoner releases.
The move was praised by human rights advocates, but a jarring note was struck when two peace activists were each sentenced the same day, Friday, to two years with hard labor for activities allegedly bringing them into contact with an armed ethnic rebel group that has been battling the central government.
A court in the central city of Mandalay sentenced Zaw Zaw Latt and Pwint Phyu Latt under a law barring associating with an unlawful organization for their contacts with the Kachin Independence Army, a guerrilla group in the countrys far north.
Associated Press
BRITAIN
Cameron on offshore fund ire: Blame me
British Prime Minister David Cameron said Saturday that he had bungled his admission of his investment in an offshore fund revealed in the mammoth data breach of a Panama law firm.
Cameron drew laughs and applause from a sympathetic Conservative Party audience as he opened his speech with a mea culpa: I could have handled this better. I know there are lessons to learn, and I will learn them. And dont blame No. 10 Downing Street or nameless advisers. Blame me.
The prime minister faces mounting pressure from opposition lawmakers to reveal the full extent of his past investment in offshore funds, particularly those run by his late father, Ian.
Camerons Downing Street office spent four days sidestepping the question. But he acknowledged Thursday that he had owned shares in his fathers Bahama trust from 1997 to 2010.
Associated Press
Pope to travel to Caucasus region: Pope Francis will make two trips this year to the often-volatile Caucasus region, the Vatican said, visiting Armenia on June 24-26 and traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan from Sept. 30-Oct. 2. Azerbaijan and Armenia have blamed each other for cease-fire violations in separatist Nagorno-Karabakh. The recent fighting marked the worst violence since a separatist war ended in 1994.
Would-be bombers shot dead in Nigeria: Five suspected suicide bombers were shot dead by armed forces as they attempted to enter the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri early Friday, according to a pro-government militia group. The female bombers were shot dead by militia members, known as youth vigilantes, a spokesman for the group said.
From news services
Marib (Yemen) (AFP) - A UN-brokered ceasefire was due to take effect in Yemen late on Sunday ahead of a new attempt to reach a lasting peace deal in the war-wracked Arabian Peninsula country.
The Saudi-led coalition that has waged an air and ground campaign against Iran-backed Huthi rebels since March last year said in a statement it would respect the truce, the fourth since it intervened.
During the countdown to the midnight (2100 GMT) ceasefire, there were sporadic clashes around the rebel-held capital Sanaa, although the city itself was quiet.
Chaos has ruled Yemen since the rebels overran Sanaa in September 2014 and later advanced to other regions, prompting the Saudi-led campaign in support of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.
It is hoped the new ceasefire will form the cornerstone of a long-lasting peace deal that can be hammered out between the country's warring parties from April 18 in Kuwait.
"The Arab coalition is going to respect a ceasefire in Yemen starting from midnight Sunday at the demand of President Hadi but reserves the right to respond" to any rebel attacks, the coalition statement said.
There was no immediate word from the rebels.
Ahead of the planned ceasefire, rebels and their allies exchanged mortar and artillery fire with pro-Hadi forces in the Sarwah region of Marib province east of Sanaa, an AFP correspondent said.
Coalition aircraft also carried out strikes to stop rebels seeking to retake a military base pro-government forces had recaptured in late 2015, military sources said.
- Months of shuttle diplomacy -
A pro-Hadi commander in Sarwah, Lieutenant Colonel Abdullah Hasan, also told AFP that loyalists will "observe the ceasefire".
"But if the Huthis attack us, the situation will return to what it was" before the truce, he warned.
Further north, coalition jets struck Huthi positions in Jawf province, the rebels said.
There were also clashes in Nihm northeast of Sanaa, according to witnesses.
Story continues
But residents of Sanaa spent a quiet night free of the sound of coalition aircraft, an AFP photographer said.
The planned truce was only agreed by the warring sides after months of shuttle diplomacy by UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed.
The rebels and Hadi's government said this week that they have submitted their observations to the UN mediator on the terms of the ceasefire, which will test their willingness to negotiate a peace deal in Kuwait.
"We will go to the consultations (in Kuwait) to achieve peace," Hadi reiterated on Saturday, insisting however that the rebels must commit to UN Security Council Resolution 2216 calling for their withdrawal from seized territory and disarmament.
Previous UN-sponsored negotiations failed to make any headway, and a ceasefire in December was repeatedly violated and eventually abandoned by the Arab coalition on January 2.
Analysts are more optimistic this time after mediation efforts have largely silenced guns along Yemen's border with Saudi Arabia, and a Huthi delegation has also visited Riyadh for talks.
- 'Long road to peace' -
The Huthis and Saudi Arabia exchanged prisoners in March after unprecedented talks mediated by tribes along the frontier, where dozens of people have been killed in cross-border shelling.
"For the first time, the groups that can end major military operations, particularly the Saudis and the Huthis, appear to be more willing to do so," said April Longley Alley at the International Crisis Group.
But "even if major combat ends, the road to peace in Yemen will be long and difficult and internal conflict is likely to continue for some time".
Yemenis themselves appear to have learned not to get their hopes up.
"I do not expect the truce to succeed," said Marib resident Zayed al-Qaisi. "The Huthis have not honoured their commitments during the wars against the state since 2004."
The Huthis fought six wars with the central government between 2004 and 2010 that killed thousands. Their main foe then, veteran president Ali Abdullah Saleh who was ousted in 2012, is now their ally.
"Even the government cannot force us to respect a ceasefire as we have not liberated our territories" from the rebels, said Qaisi.
Sanaa resident Ali Mohsen doubted that Riyadh would commit to the truce.
"Saudi Arabia is just procrastinating and being deceptive," said the 50-year-old.
Umm Mohammed, waiting outside a central Sanaa school, agreed that the truce is "a deception. We tried it unsuccessfully before."
"I want a real end to the war."
The UN says more than 6,300 people have been killed in impoverished Yemen since March last year -- around half of them civilians -- and 30,000 have been wounded.
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Cristina Fernandez, who stepped down as president of Argentina in December after eight years in office, has been officially accused by a prosecutor of money laundering, a court source said on Saturday. The decision follows testimony on Friday by businessman Leonardo Farina, who in a plea bargain implicated Fernandez and her late husband and former President Nestor Kirchner in a case related to money laundering and embezzling funds earmarked for public works, local media reported. Julio De Vido, a longtime Fernandez and Kirchner ally and former minister, was also charged, local newspapers and state news agency Telam said. Under Argentine law, a prosecutor can formally accuse, or charge ("imputar") a person they believe to be involved in wrongdoing. A judge then decides whether to call those named to make an official statement. Last Tuesday, another Fernandez ally, businessman Lazaro Baez, was arrested for questioning as part of the same investigation. Fernandez, 63, is due to answer questions in court on Wednesday over a separate probe into the sale of U.S. dollar futures contracts at below-market rates by the central bank during her administration. Fernandez, a leftist leader from the Peronist party, was barred constitutionally from seeking a third consecutive term. Opposition candidate Mauricio Macri won the November election, ending more than a decade of Peronist rule. A spokesman for the justice ministry said the government would not comment on ongoing cases. (Reporting by Jorge Otaola; Writing by Rosalba O'Brien; Editing by Mary Milliken and Matthew Lewis)
VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria and its neighbors in central Europe and the Balkans will press the European Union to create a new auxiliary force to help countries deal with any influx of migrants, Austria's defense minister said on Friday. Austria has suggested setting up a "bridging mission" that would help EU border agency Frontex process and deport migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey until Frontex is fully staffed there, which Vienna has said could take months. Meeting defense and other officials from the region in Vienna on Thursday, Defence Minister Hans Peter Doskozil said those present backed a modified version of that concept, which could be sent to Greece or elsewhere. "It is ... a mixed civil-police-military mission that should be deployed where necessary," Doskozil said, adding the aim was to help secure the European Union's external borders and deport migrants not entitled to stay in the bloc. Austria has broken ranks with its neighbor Germany on how to deal with Europe's migration crisis, coordinating a cascade of border restrictions through the Balkans that have left tens of thousands of migrants stuck in Greece. Germany says it prefers common European measures, but Austria said it risked turning into a crowded "waiting room" if migrants had kept streaming across its territory towards Germany and its larger neighbor tightened its border controls further. With the main migrant route through the Balkans and Austria now largely closed, Vienna says there is a risk that new routes will develop through Bulgaria or Albania, as Mediterranean crossings to Italy from Libya resume. Greece, which is furious at the border restrictions coordinated by Austria, was invited to Thursday's meeting but did not attend, Doskozil said. Italy was also not present. Doskozil said those present - including EU members Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Croatia - would send a letter detailing the proposal to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini ahead of an EU defense ministers' meeting on April 19. (Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
Vienna (AFP) - Austria's new Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said on Sunday he would stick to the hardline stance on migrants pushed by his predecessor, Johanna Mikl-Leitner.
"This course will be continued, there's no doubt about that," Sobotka told a press conference in Vienna.
The 60-year-old, who is a newcomer to national politics, said he did not want "any experiments".
The pair will swap jobs later this month as part of a reshuffle within the conservative OeVP party announced on Sunday evening.
Mikl-Leitner is set to take over Sobotka's current position as acting regional governor in her home state of Lower Austria.
"In a few days I will leave the republic's toughest job behind me and start the most beautiful role in Austria," Mikl-Leitner said.
The 52-year-old, who took office in 2011, has been one of the key architects behind the country's tough asylum-seeker policies, as Europe grapples with its worst migration crisis since World War II.
She has overseen the introduction of border fences, tougher frontier controls and hardline asylum rules -- including an annual cap on migrant numbers -- as part of her push to build "fortress Europe" and shut the main Balkan migrant trail for good.
With that route now closed, Mikl-Leitner recently turned her attention to the Italian border, threatening to clamp down on the strategically important Brenner pass checkpoint if Rome failed to stop illegal migrants.
VIENNA (Reuters) - Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner, often the face of Austria's increasingly tough line on immigration, is leaving the government and plans to swap jobs with the deputy governor of her home province, Lower Austria, her party said on Sunday. Vice-Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner, who heads the center-right People's Party (OVP), confirmed that its leadership had approved the decision, speaking at a joint news conference with Mikl-Leitner and her planned replacement, Wolfgang Sobotka. "Now that we have the decision of the party leadership, we will clear it with the president and of course with the chancellor," Mitterlehner said, adding that the job switch should take place within about two weeks. The announcement confirmed reports on Saturday that the party was planning the move. Mikl-Leitner and Sobotka praised each other, giving little indication of any change in policy. Chancellor Werner Faymann, a Social Democrat, said in a statement: "It is the coalition partner's decision, which I respect, of course." (Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Oxygen
A Tampa-area family's long wait for answers about the disappearance of their husband and father has come to an end. The Tallahassee Police Department announced this week that skeletal remains had been found in a wooded area off Apalachee Parkway, a commercial road dotted with strip malls and hotels on the east side of the city. Shortly thereafter, they announced that, with information received from the local medical examiner's office, they had identified the deceased as Jason Winoker, 52, of Lan
By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Leonardo DiCaprio's bear brawl and a steamy smooch from "Fifty Shades of Grey" are among the movie moments battling for popcorn-shaped accolades at the MTV Movie Awards, where cheeky humor and naughty acts often upstage the winners at the youth-orientated event. "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," the third-highest grossing film of all time, leads the nominees with 11 nods and will compete for movie of the year on Saturday alongside "Jurassic World," "Avengers: Age of Ultron," "Creed," "Deadpool" and "Straight Outta Compton." Viacom Inc's MTV Movie Awards, which will tape late Saturday in Los Angeles and air on the MTV network on Sunday, ushers in the summer blockbuster season, featuring stars from upcoming action movies such as "Captain America: Civil War," "The Huntsman: Winter War" and "Suicide Squad." It's all about the unpredictable at the MTV Movie Awards, hosted by comedian Kevin Hart and action star Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, where fans vote for their favorite films and performances from the year. The show honors the year's biggest action-packed blockbusters that usually tend to be shunned during Hollywood's annual awards season. This year's irreverent categories include best fight - Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio and the Bear from "The Revenant" are among the nominees - and fan favorite award for best kiss. The best kiss nominees includes Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan from erotic movie "Fifty Shades of Grey," Chris Hemsworth and Leslie Mann from comedy "Vacation" and comedian Amy Schumer and Bill Hader from raunchy comedy "Trainwreck." Last year's awards show saw Zac Efron grab co-star Dave Franco's crotch when the two accepted the award for best comedic duo on stage, while Schumer shared a passionate kiss with model Amber Rose. (Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy, Editing by Franklin Paul)
By Steve Gorman (Reuters) - Headlines screaming "Deportations to begin" and "Markets sink as trade war looms" top a parody newspaper front page the Boston Globe posted on Saturday, with a scathing editorial denouncing Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump's candidacy. The mock-up, offering the Globe's satirical view of America under a Trump presidency, was set to run as the front page of the newspaper's "Ideas" section, followed on page 2 of that section by the anti-Trump editorial. The novel front-page spoof, says the editorial, is designed to take Trump's rhetoric and his policy positions to their "logical conclusion." "It is an exercise in taking a man at his word," the editorial says. "And his vision of America promises to be as appalling in real life as it is in black and white on the page." There was no immediate comment from Trump or his campaign. The editorial brands the billionaire businessman as a "demagogue" whose own political vision is "profoundly un-American." It casts his closest rival for the 2016 Republican nomination, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, as "equally extreme" and urges Republicans, if possible at the party's nominating convention in July, to draft a "plausible, honorable" alternative, suggesting U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan or former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. The mock Trump page was conceived and executed by the Globe's editorial writers, columnists and commentary editors, who make up the newspaper's editorial board, said Ellen Clegg, the newspaper's editorial page editor. Noting that she reports to John Henry, the Globe's publisher, Clegg stressed to Reuters in a telephone interview that the front-page parody "does not involve our newsroom." Clegg said she knew of no other such expression of political satire ever published by the Globe or any other major metropolitan daily in the United States during her 30 years at the newspaper. But it was reminiscent of the kind of parody regularly featured by the farcical online news outlet, The Onion. The mock front page envisions a host of political, financial and international scenarios ranging from disturbingly surreal to darkly humorous, all playing on Trump's real pronouncements about illegal immigration, Muslims, national security and the First Amendment. A color photograph of Trump making a speech is centered near the top of the page under a banner headline reading: "Deportations to begin," with a subhead reporting that Trump was calling for a tripling of immigration enforcement personnel as "riots continue." A top story on the page opens with the paragraph: "Worldwide stocks plunged again Friday, completing the worst month on record as trade wars with both China and Mexico seem imminent." Other mock entries include a story about unrest in the ranks of the U.S. military as soldiers refuse orders to kill family members of Islamic State militants, and the headline: "New libel law targets 'absolute scum' in press." In a more tongue-in-cheek vein, a brief item reports Trump on the "short list" for the Nobel Peace Prize. "His feat? Healing a 1,385-year-old schism between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, which has fueled bloody conflicts across the globe for centuries." Clegg said it was not the first time the Globe, which tends to lean Democratic on its opinion pages, has editorialized against Trump, but it marked its most "resolute" opposition to his candidacy. (Reporting by Steve Gorman from Los Angeles; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Courtesy of the Boston Globe
Last night, the Boston Globe had a fever dream starring President Donald J. Trump.
The newspaper published a satirical front page on Sunday imagining what the world would be like a year from now if Trump becomes commander in chief.
DEPORTATIONS TO BEGIN, blares the headline on April 9, 2017, above a photo of the would-be 45th U.S. president and an accompanying story detailing how Trump would carry out one of his campaign promises: the deportation of 11.3 million illegal workers something he vowed to do so fast your head will spin.
Other headlines covered some troubling developments during Trumps first 100 days in the White House, from the war on terror (U.S. soldiers refuse orders to kill ISIS families) to trade (Markets sink as trade war looms) to journalism (New libel law targets absolute scum in press) to space exploration (NASA engineers halted the launch of an unmanned probe amid fears that its new gold leaf trim would interfere with radio communications) to the U.S. park system (Heavy spring snow closed Trump National Park for the first time since it dropped its loser name, Yellowstone).
Perhaps more troubling: Kid Rock is a U.S. ambassador in a Trump administration. And the education secretary? Former Celebrity Apprentice star Omarosa.
This is Donald Trumps America, the Globe said in an editors note. What you read on this page is what might happen if the GOP frontrunner can put his ideas into practice, his words into action. Many Americans might find this vision appealing, but the Globes editorial board finds it deeply troubling.
The board elaborated on what it described as the dangers of Trumps vision in a separate op-ed:
The rise of demagogic strongmen is an all too common phenomenon on our small planet. And what marks each of those dark episodes is a failure to fathom where a leaders vision leads, to carry rhetoric to its logical conclusion. The satirical front page of this section attempts to do just that, to envision what America looks like with Trump in the White House. It is an exercise in taking a man at his word. And his vision of America promises to be as appalling in real life as it is in black and white on the page.
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At a rally in Rochester, N.Y., on Sunday afternoon, Trump fired back.
How about that stupid Boston Globe its worthless, he said. They made up an entire front-page story which is really no different than the whole paper.
Brasilia (AFP) - Workers erected barricades Sunday along Brasilia's Esplanade of Ministries to separate supporters and opponents of President Dilma Rousseff's impeachment, on the eve of a crucial vote on her political fate.
A congressional commission preparing to recommend whether or not to impeach Rousseff resumes deliberations Monday, with a vote scheduled for 5:00 pm (2000 GMT), and authorities are taking no chances in the build-up to a subsequent vote by the lower house of Congress next weekend.
Officials expect as many as 300,000 people to gather on the esplanade later in the week as the showdown unravels.
"We are aware of this historic moment's importance and are working to provide the necessary conditions for people to exercise their right to freedom of expression without endangering citizens' lives or the integrity of our heritage," Globo G1 website quoted Public Security Secretary Marcia de Alencar as saying.
Rousseff is accused of breaking the law by juggling government accounts to disguise the depth of budget shortfalls during her 2014 re-election.
She argues the relatively technical accusation does not constitute an impeachable offense.
Momentum for Rousseff's removal is fueled by a massive recession, political paralysis and a sprawling corruption scandal that have reduced approval ratings for her government to around 10 percent.
A latest poll by the Datafolha Institute found 61 percent of Brazilians in favor of impeachment, down from 68 percent in mid-March, while 60 percent believe Rousseff should resign.
By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) - Scientists in Brazil have uncovered a new brain disorder associated with Zika infections in adults: an autoimmune syndrome called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, or ADEM, that attacks the brain and spinal cord. Zika has already been linked with the autoimmune disorder Guillain-Barre syndrome, which attacks peripheral nerves outside the brain and spinal cord, causing temporary paralysis that can in some cases require patients to rely on respirators for breathing. The new discovery now shows Zika may provoke an immune attack on the central nervous system as well. The findings add to the growing list of neurological damage associated with Zika. According to the World Health Organization, there is a strong scientific consensus that, in addition to Guillain-Barre, Zika can cause the birth defect microcephaly, though conclusive proof may take months or years. Microcephaly is defined by unusually small heads that can result in developmental problems. Brazil said it has confirmed more than 940 cases to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil is investigating nearly 4,300 additional suspected cases of microcephaly. In addition to autoimmune disease, some researchers also have reported patients with Zika infections developing encephalitis and myelitis - nerve disorders typically caused by direct infections in nerve cells. "Though our study is small, it may provide evidence that in this case, the virus has different effects on the brain than those identified in current studies," Dr. Maria Lucia Brito, a neurologist at Restoration Hospital in Recife, Brazil, said in a statement. ADEM typically occurs in the aftermath of an infection, causing intense swelling in the brain and spinal cord that damages myelin, the white protective coating surrounding nerve fibers. It results in weakness, numbness and loss of balance and vision, symptoms similar to multiple sclerosis. Brito presented her findings on Sunday at the American Academy of Neurology meeting in Vancouver. The study involved 151 patients who visited her hospital between December 2014 and June 2015. All had been infected with arboviruses, the family of viruses that includes Zika, dengue and chikungunya. Six of these patients developed symptoms consistent with autoimmune disorders. Of these six, four had Guillain-Barre and two had ADEM. In both ADEM cases, brain scans showed damage to white matter. ADEM symptoms typically last about six months. All six patients tested positive for Zika, and all had lingering effects after being discharged from the hospital, with five patients reporting motor dysfunction, one with vision problems, and one with cognitive decline. At least 13 countries have reported cases of Guillain-Barre linked with outbreaks of Zika, according to the World Health Organization, and WHO believes that Zika likely is the cause. Dr. James Sejvar, a neuroepidemiologist for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the ADEM cases linked with Zika do not appear to be occurring at the same accelerated rate as cases of Guillain-Barre, but said doctors should be on the lookout for ADEM and other central nervous system illnesses. "Of course, the remaining question is 'Why?'" Sejvar said. "Why does Zika virus appear to have the strong association with GBS and potential other immune/inflammatory diseases of the nervous system?" Sejvar, who has studied Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) in Brazil and is involved in a major clinical trial of Guillain-Barre in Puerto Rico, said he hopes future studies will shed more light on such questions. (Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
By Robert-Jan Bartunek BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The militant cell behind bombings in Brussels had been plotting to hit France again after carrying out the Paris attacks in November, but was forced to strike closer to home as police closed in, Belgian prosecutors said on Sunday. Investigations into the Islamic State attacks in Paris, which killed 130 people, showed that many of the perpetrators lived in Belgium, including surviving suspects who managed to evade police for more than four months. Prime suspect Salah Abdeslam was arrested on March 18 in the Belgian capital. Four days later, suicide bombers killed 32 people in Brussels airport and a rush-hour metro train. "Numerous elements in the investigation have shown that the terrorist group initially had the intention to strike in France again," Belgium's federal prosecutor said in a statement. "Surprised by the speed of progress in the investigation, they took the decision to strike in Brussels." Belgian intelligence and security forces had been criticised abroad for not doing more to dismantle the militant cell, because of its links to the Paris attacks. As of Friday, all publicly identified suspects were either in detention or dead, but Belgium remains on its second highest threat level, and Prime Minister Charles Michel said his government would remain alert. His comments were echoed by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who said France would not be lowering its guard. "This is a further sign of the very serious threat facing Europe as a whole and of course France in particular," Valls told a news conference in Algiers. Abdeslam, born and raised in Belgium to Moroccan-born parents, told a magistrate he had planned to blow himself up at a sports stadium in Paris in November, but backed out at the last minute. His brother Brahim blew himself up at a Paris cafe. Another man linked to the Paris attacks, Mohamed Abrini, was arrested in Brussels on Friday and admitted to being the "man in the hat" captured on video walking into Brussels airport alongside two suicide bombers. Abrini, 31, has been charged with terrorist murders, prosecutors said. Another main suspect who was seen alongside the suicide bomber in the Brussels metro, identified by prosecutors as Osama K, was also arrested on Friday in the Belgian capital. Osama K, 28, widely named by media as Swedish national Osama Krayem, was filmed buying the bags used to carry the Brussels bombs. (additional reporting by Laurence Frost; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Brussels (AFP) - The Brussels-based Islamic State jihadists behind the Paris attacks had planned a fresh strike in France but targeted the Belgian capital instead as police closed in, a prosecutor said Sunday.
Belgium's federal prosecutor also announced that the so-called "man in the hat" Mohamed Abrini, seen in CCTV footage at Brussels airport before the bombings last month, had been charged with "terrorist murders."
Suicide bombers killed 32 people at the airport and a metro station on March 22, and left a trail leading directly to the November attacks in Paris which left 130 dead.
"Numerous elements in the investigation have shown that the terrorist group initially had the intention to strike in France again," the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement.
"Surprised by the speed of the progress in the ongoing investigation, they urgently took the decision to strike in Brussels."
- 'Proof of high threats' -
The prosecutor gave no further details, but the Brussels bombings followed the March 18 arrest of top Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam after four months on the run.
"It's extra proof of the very high threats to the whole of Europe and to France in particular," French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said of the prosecutor's statement.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve added that France would remain on high alert for the indefinite future.
"We are still facing a high level of threat... It (the work of the police and judiciary) is a long process, it will go on for a long time," he said.
Abrini, who grew up with Abdeslam in the troubled Molenbeek area, was charged Sunday with "participation in the activities of a terrorist group, terrorist murders and attempts to commit terrorist murders".
On Saturday, the judge leading the Belgian investigation into the Paris carnage had laid the same charges against Abrini, the day after his arrest.
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The 31-year-old Belgian of Moroccan origin confessed to being "the man in the hat" who calmly walked away from the devastated Brussels airport departure hall, the prosecutor said Saturday.
He returned on foot to central Brussels, discarding his hat and coat on the way before disappearing into thin air as police launched a fresh public appeal for help.
- 'Hunted' -
Abrini was a long-time petty criminal who grew up in Molenbeek, home to several other suspects who all share a similar story of getting on the wrong side of the law and becoming radicalised.
One of the Brussels airport bombers, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, left behind what the Belgian authorities described as a "will" on a computer in which he said he felt "hunted" and "I don't know what to do."
The other airport bomber was Najim Laachraoui whose DNA was found on a suicide vest discovered at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris where 90 people were killed.
Laachraoui is widely believed to have been the cell's bombmaker.
About an hour after the airport blasts, Ibrahim's brother Khalid blew himself up at Maalbeek metro station, not far from the European Union headquarters district in Brussels.
The federal prosecutor gave no details of the planned attack in France but late last month, French police arrested Reda Kriket near Paris, finding weapons and explosives in a flat he had used to suggest he was planning an act of "extreme violence."
Belgium has arrested several suspects in connection with the Kriket case and on Thursday remanded two -- named as Abderrahmane A. and Rabah M. -- in custody.
Shortly after Kriket's arrest, French prosecutor Francois Molins said that "while no specific target has been identified, nonetheless everything leads us to believe that the discovery of this cache has allowed us to prevent an action of extreme violence by a terrorist network".
- Belgium criticised -
The Belgian authorities have faced intense criticism over their handling of the Brussels attacks and the investigation, especially when it emerged that many of the suspects were long known to the police.
Critics say the government has not done enough to prevent extremists targeting Muslim youth in areas such as Molenbeek, with Belgium proportionately the biggest source of foreign fighters going to join the Islamic State group in Syria.
Abdeslam, whose brother Brahim blew himself up in Paris, was seen driving to the French capital with Abrini shortly before the attacks but he apparently balked at the same mission and fled back to Brussels.
Police finally arrested him not far from the family home in Molenbeek after apparently stumbling upon another jihadist safe house in the Forest area of the city.
Buoyed by Abdeslam's arrest, the police launched an increasing series of raids, mainly in Brussels, which netted Abrini on Friday.
Abdeslam is now awaiting extradition to France.
"That is justice... he who does something must pay the price," Abdeslam's father, who has lived in Belgium for 40 years, told French radio on Tuesday.
By Estelle Shirbon and Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron took the unusual step on Sunday of publishing his tax records to try to end days of questions about his personal wealth raised by the mention of his late father's offshore fund in the Panama Papers. Cameron's initial reluctance to admit he had benefited from the fund caused a furore, compounding his problems when he faces a huge political fight to persuade Britons to vote to stay in the European Union in a June 23 referendum. The EU issue has split his Conservative Party, while the government has also been going through a tough patch over a senior minister's resignation, a u-turn on welfare cuts and accusations it is failing to protect Britain's steel industry. After saying on Saturday that could have handled the fallout from the Panama disclosures better, Cameron released a summary of his tax records for the past six years. But any hope that would draw a line under the row was short-lived, as the main Sunday newspapers zeroed in on a gift of 200,000 pounds ($282,500) Cameron received from his mother in 2011, suggesting it may be a way of avoiding inheritance tax. A source at Cameron's Downing Street office said the suggestion was inaccurate. Cameron is one of dozens of politicians around the world who have been hit by the leak of 11.5 million documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca that detail the creation of more than 200,000 companies in offshore tax havens. Cameron will make a statement about tax policy to parliament on Monday to try to regain the upper hand. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has accused him of misleading the public by issuing what Corbyn described as four "weasel-worded" statements in as many days before finally admitting that he had benefited from his father's fund. Some politicians campaigning for Britain to vote to stay in the EU in June's referendum are concerned that the damage to Cameron is bad for their side, as he had previously been considered the best advocate for an "In" vote. "The scandals over David Cameron's finances ... may tip the decision further towards 'Leave'," said former Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Gordon Wilson on Sunday. Nicola Sturgeon, SNP leader and first minister of Scotland's devolved government, published her latest tax return on Sunday, adding to pressure for greater transparency by politicians. 'UNSAVOURY' ATTACKS Cameron is not accused of having done anything illegal, and the fact that he is a wealthy man is nothing new. But the past week has been damaging because the drip-drip of carefully worded statements before the fuller disclosure created the impression he may have had something to hide. "He's not behaved improperly in any way and he's gone further than any prime minister previously in publishing these tax returns," Conservative minister Dominic Raab told Sky News television, accusing Cameron's Labour critics of "unsavoury" personal attacks and comparing them to "hyenas". Cameron announced a new taskforce on tax evasion would be led by the tax authority, HMRC, and the National Crime Agency. The Guardian newspaper reported later that HMRC boss Edward Troup's former employer, London-based law firm Simmons and Simmons, had counted Cameron's father's fund among its clients. The Guardian made no suggestion of wrongdoing by Troup or Simmons and Simmons. HMRC said Troup had never had any dealings with Mossack Fonseca or advised any of its clients named so far. It added that any HMRC officers with a potential conflict of interest would exclude themselves from a relevant investigation. Bookmakers William Hill said they had cut their odds on Cameron resigning as prime minister this year to 2/1, compared with 16/1 when he won the last general election last May. Cameron said on Thursday his father's investment trust was not set up to avoid tax but to invest in dollar-denominated shares. He said he had paid all taxes due on his own investment, which was worth about 30,000 pounds when he sold it in 2010. But Cameron stands accused of hypocrisy after portraying his government as being in the forefront of global efforts to crack down on offshore tax havens. A comment he made in 2012 about a famous comedian's legal tax avoidance scheme being "morally wrong" has been widely quoted by media. The documents disclosed by Downing Street on Sunday, from RNS Chartered Accountants, show Cameron paid tax of 75,898 pounds on income of 200,307 pounds in the 2014-2015 financial year, the most recent one included. (Additional reporting by Elisabeth O'Leary in Edinburgh; Editing by Ros Russell and Peter Cooney)
By Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron published his tax records on Sunday in an attempt to draw a line under questions about his personal finances raised by the mention of his late father in the Panama Papers for setting up an offshore fund. The revelations have led to demands for Cameron's resignation and handed ammunition to opposition lawmakers who questioned why he was reluctant to detail his financial connections with his father. Cameron took the unorthodox step of releasing the normally confidential details after saying he should have handled the scrutiny of his family's tax affairs better. The documents from RNS Chartered Accountants - which cover six years - show Cameron paid tax of 75,898 pounds ($107,198) on income of 200,307 pounds in the 2014-2015 financial year, the most recent one included. His income comprised his 140,522 pound salary, taxable expenses of 9,834 pounds, 46,899 pounds from half of the share of rent from his family home in London and 3,052 pounds in interest on savings, according to the record. Scores of politicians and business figures have been implicated in the Panama Papers, including the prime minister of Iceland who has since stepped down. The 11.5 million documents leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca detail the creation of more than 200,000 companies in offshore tax havens. While Cameron is not accused of doing anything illegal, he made four different statements over four days about his late father's inclusion in the documents. He said on Thursday he once had a stake in his father's offshore trust and had profited from it. He said the unit investment trust was not set up to avoid tax but to invest in dollar-denominated shares and that he had paid all taxes due on his own investment, which was worth "something like 30,000 pounds" when he sold out in January 2010, before he became prime minister. TAX TASKFORCE Cameron's admission of fault comes after a torrid period for his Conservative government. It is divided over a June 23 referendum on whether to remain in the European Union, has been forced to backtrack on welfare cuts and has been accused of not protecting Britain's steel industry. Seeking to further take back the initiative, Cameron also announced on Sunday a new taskforce, jointly led by Britain's tax authority and National Crime Agency, to build on the work Britain has done to tackle money laundering and tax evasion. When Britain hosted a G8 summit in 2013, Cameron put tackling tax avoidance at the heart of the agenda. Some of Britain's former colonies increasingly rely on revenues from shell companies and trusts that often hide wealth. "The UK has been at the forefront of international action to tackle the global scourge of aggressive tax avoidance and evasion, and international corruption more broadly," Cameron said in a statement. "There is clearly further to go and this taskforce will bring the best of British expertise to deal with any wrongdoing relating to the Panama Papers." The government said it had tracked down 2 billion pounds ($2.82 billion) from offshore tax dodgers since 2010, and authorities were already investigating 700 current leads with links to Panama. The taskforce will receive 10 million pounds of funding to start work, the government said. (Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Alison Williams)
BEIJING (Reuters) - A former vice governor of China's populous southwestern province of Sichuan has been put under investigation for suspected corruption, the ruling Communist Party's graft-busting body said late on Saturday. Li Chengyun is suspected of "severe disciplinary violations", the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a brief statement, using its normal euphemism for corruption. It gave no other details. It was not possible to reach Li for comment and unclear if he has retained a lawyer. Sichuan, famed for its spicy cuisine, has emerged as a focus of President Xi Jinping's crackdown on deep-seated corruption, since it was a power base for Zhou Yongkang, the country's once powerful domestic security boss. Zhou was jailed for life last year for graft, and dozens of his associates have also been arrested, many in Sichuan, where he was Communist Party boss from 1999 to 2002. Li has spent his entire working life in Sichuan, his official biography says, where he was party chief in the provincial city of Deyang city when Zhou was in charge of Sichuan. He was dismissed as deputy governor in 2011, also accused of discipline breaches, but two months later appointed a vice director of a Sichuan policy planning panel, state-run media said on Sunday. Li was best know for shedding tears at a news conference in Beijing in 2008 after a deadly earthquake which killed almost 70,000 people, media said. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
By Ben Blanchard and J.R. Wu BEIJING/TAIPEI (Reuters) - China resumed ties with former Taiwan ally Gambia on Thursday, ending an unofficial diplomatic truce between China and Taiwan following January's landslide election of the leader of a pro-independence party as the self-ruled island's president. The small West African state was one of a few African countries, along with Burkina Faso, Swaziland and Sao Tome and Principe, to recognize Taiwan, which China regards as a wayward province to be recovered by force if necessary. China and Taiwan had for years tried to poach each other's allies, often dangling generous aid packages in front of leaders of developing nations. But they began an unofficial diplomatic truce after signing a series of landmark trade and economic agreements in 2008 after the election of the China-friendly Ma Ying-jeou as Taiwan's president, as Beijing tried to convince Taiwan of its friendly intentions after decades of hostility and suspicion. While Gambia severed relations with Taiwan in November 2013, causing anger in Taipei, China had held off establishing formal ties with it until now. "From here on, China and Gambia's relations have turned over a new leaf," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Gambian counterpart, Neneh Macdouall-Gaye, China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "The early resumption of ties accords with the basic interests of both countries and conforms to the trend of the times and general trend of the development of China-Africa friendship and cooperation," Wang added. Macdouall-Gaye, in comments carried on Chinese state television, said the Gambian nation supported "the national reunification, peaceful reunification" of China and Taiwan. Beijing has repeatedly warned against any moves toward independence since Tsai Ing-wen and her pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the presidential and parliamentary elections. Tsai assumes office in May. Tsai has said she would maintain peace with China, and Chinese state-run media have noted her pledges to maintain the "status quo" with China. "HIGHLY INAPPROPRIATE" ACTION Taiwan must not let this kind of incident happen again, the DPP said in a statement, referring to China's rapprochement with Gambia, and was committed to consolidating diplomatic relations once it took power. It also said it hoped China and Taiwan would not engage in "target competition," while the Foreign Ministry expressed regret over the Gambia move. Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council said its counterpart in Beijing, the Taiwan Affairs Office, had warned it earlier in the day the announcement was coming. "We call on the mainland to face the reality that the Republic of China is a sovereign state and not carry out negative actions. Otherwise, it must take full responsibility for the possible consequences," the council said in a statement, referring to Taiwan's official name. It added that the move would have a negative impact on cross-strait relations. The news came while President Ma was on a visit to allies Guatemala and Belize. He told reporters in Belize on Thursday China's action was "highly inappropriate." In a separate statement, China's Foreign Ministry did not directly address whether the decision on relations with Gambia was a warning to Tsai or marked the end of the truce. "We uphold the one-China principle. The direction of promoting the peaceful development of cross-Taiwan Strait has not changed," it said. Gambia had recognized mainland China from 1974 to 1995, before switching over to Taiwan. China says Taiwan has no right to diplomatic recognition as it is part of China. Defeated Nationalist forces fled to the island in 1949 after the Chinese civil war. Other countries with diplomatic ties with Taiwan include the tiny Pacific island states of Nauru and Palau, as well as Vatican City, Paraguay, Panama, Haiti, and Nicaragua. China has also been quietly courting Sao Tome and Principe, whose president made a low key visit to China in 2014. (Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Robert Birsel and Mike Collett-White)
Moroni (Comoros) (AFP) - Comoros election officials began counting ballots late Sunday after a tense three-way presidential run-off poll featuring the current vice president and a former coup leader who ruled the country for seven years.
The day of voting was marred by a number of incidents notably on Anjouan, one of the three islands which make up the Indian Ocean archipelago.
Results in the race to succeed outgoing President Ikililou Dhoinine are not expected before Wednesday.
The second round of the presidential race comes after Vice President Mohamed Ali Soilihi -- known as Mamadou -- won the disputed first round in February with 17.88 percent of the vote.
The two other contenders are governor of Grande Comore island Mouigni Baraka, who garnered 15.62 percent in the first round, and 1999 coup leader Colonel Azali Assoumani, who took 15.10 percent.
Nineteen of the 25 candidates who stood in the first round rejected the outcome and demanded a recount, but the Constitutional Court ruled against them, upholding the results.
Second-round voting began just after 7:00 am (0400 GMT) on Sunday and Interior Minister Mohamed Elhad Abbas said "all the conditions for a transparent vote are in place", but conceded that despite security measures "you can feel a definite tension".
Officials began emptying ballot boxes at 6:00 pm (1500 GMT) after polls closed.
The campaign was marked by a barrage of personal attacks and allegations of corruption, particularly between Mamadou and Assoumani -- who is seen as Mamadou's main rival after receiving the endorsement from the opposition Juwa party, which has no candidate in the second round.
- Arrests, ballot boxes broken -
Five people were arrested on Sunday for "electoral propaganda" in local elections being held alongside the presidential poll, and incidents involving activists from the different camps were reported on the island of Anjouan.
Baraka told AFP by telephone that he was "worried by what is happening on Anjouan", where the Juwa party is popular. Voting was interrupted in two polling stations on the island after ballot boxes were broken by troublemakers, according to aides of Baraka.
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Assoumani first came to power in 1999 after ousting acting president Tadjidine Ben Said Massounde in a coup. He then won the presidential election three years later, stepping down when his term ended in 2006.
Salim Soulaimana, head of a Comoros association of civil society groups, warned it was a "high risk vote".
"Voters are in a suspicious frame of mind because of the irregularities in the first round," Soulaimana told AFP.
- 20 coup bids in 26 years -
The first round took place only on Grand Comore island, in accordance with electoral rules that ensure the president is chosen on a rotating basis from the three main islands.
Comoros' system was established in 2001 after more than 20 coups or attempted coups, four of which were successful, in the years following independence from France in 1975.
The three islands that make up the Comoros -- Anjouan, Grand Comore and Moheli -- have a total population of just under 800,000 people, nearly all of whom are Sunni Muslims.
Dhoinine's completion of his five-year term in the impoverished archipelago has been seen as a sign of growing stability in the Comoros in recent years.
Though the islands, situated between Madagascar and Mozambique, suffer dire poverty, they export some vanilla, cloves and ylang-ylang perfume essence.
Comoros is the world's top producer of ylang-ylang, which is extracted from a flower -- a commodity that makes up one-tenth of the archipelago's total export revenues.
The oil is a key ingredient in Chanel Number 5 perfume and is also used in many other fragrances.
Paris (AFP) - The lives of millions of women and children can be saved every year with an investment of under $5 per person on basic healthcare and contraception, a study into pregnancy-related deaths showed Saturday.
Nearly six million children younger than five and 300,000 women died in 2015, according to research in The Lancet medical journal.
Ninety-five percent of maternal and child deaths occur in 74 low- and middle-income countries.
"Many of these deaths could be prevented if high-impact and affordable solutions reached the populations that needed them most," study leader Robert Black of John Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health said in a statement.
"Our analysis shows that expanding access to care to keep more mothers and children alive and healthy is feasible, and a highly cost-effective investment."
Four million lives could be saved each year by reaching 90 percent of those in need with basic services such as pregnancy and delivery care, childhood nutrition, and treatment for infectious diseases like pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria, said the team.
This was broken down into 1.5 million newborn deaths, 1.5 million child deaths, 149,000 newborn deaths and almost 850,000 stillbirths.
Access to contraception on its own, could reduce 67,000 maternal deaths, 440,000 newborn deaths, 473,000 child deaths and 564,000 stillbirths, they estimated.
The cost would be $6.2 billion (5.4 billion euros) in low-income countries, or $6.7 per person who needs it.
In lower middle-income countries, the required amount is $12.4 billion or $4.70 per person, and in middle-income countries $8 billion or $3.90 per person.
Overall, the cost per head would be $4.70, the team said.
Frankfurt (AFP) - Germany at the start of the year introduced a corporate "women's quota" obliging its 100 biggest companies to fill at least 30 percent of their supervisory board seats with females.
But for many, including several of the women executives themselves, the new legislation has so far proved something of a "paper tiger".
"The law is addressing the tip of the iceberg and we need to make sure that we change more than that," said Belen Garijo, board member at pharmaceuticals specialist Merck KGaA.
The 55-year-old Spaniard is the first woman to hold such a position at the world's oldest pharmaceuticals maker, based in Darmstadt.
But for her, what counts are the competence and skills required for the job rather than quotas like the one Germany introduced on January 1.
"If someone were to tell me, 'you sit on the board because you're a female', that would reduce me to tears," she said.
Claudia Nemat, a board member at Deutsche Telekom, also said that such "legislation makes no real difference".
"Companies must understand that diversity -- both on the executive and supervisory boards -- gives them a competitive advantage," she said.
"We need men and women with international experience, both young and old."
The German drugs and telecoms giants can be viewed as pioneers in a country where the glass ceiling for women is still very much a reality.
Both groups have female executive board members and more women on their supervisory boards than the 30-percent minimum required by the new law, which came at the insistence of the junior partner in the ruling coalition, the Social Democrats.
Under the law, if women cannot be found to fill 30 percent of supervisory board seats, then those seats must remain empty.
- 'Snail's pace' -
By fixing a quota, Germany is following in the footsteps of Norway, a pioneer in gender equality, and European neighbours such as France, Spain and the Netherlands.
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Big companies, and 3,500 small and medium-sized enterprises, must also fix their own voluntary goals for women on their management boards and provide regular updates on the progress they make.
The new legislation "marks some progress, but let's hope things aren't going to proceed at the same snail's pace" as in the past, said Elke Holst, research chief at the economic think tank DIW.
The institute has been monitoring the number of female top executives in Germany's 200 biggest companies for more than 10 years, and the results aren't good.
At the end of 2015, just six percent of the firms had female executive board members, and just under 20 percent had women on their supervisory boards.
"The situation has improved slightly, but not very much with regard to the executive board positions," Holst said.
There were no women at all on the management boards of groups such as Volkswagen, Commerzbank or Beiersdorf, maker of Nivea products.
On Germany's current trends, gender parity won't be attained before 2040 on supervisory boards, and not until next century on executive boards, the expert has calculated.
- 'Change and awareness' -
Holst said that without real sanctions for corporate laggards, the new legislation would remain a "paper tiger."
Yet many women executives fear that penalising companies that don't promote enough females to board positions could be counter-productive.
"I don't believe in sanctions, I don't think sanctions get you the right behaviour," said Bayer's first female board member, Erica Mann.
"My view is that people need to willingly do things, and I think education is more important than sanctions."
Mann said she grew up in South Africa where in the 1980s she saw "quotas to get more black people and more women into jobs".
She said such quotas "force a good change and awareness" but can also be problematic for those who benefit because "you want to feel that you got that job fair and square, not because you're (part of) a quota".
Garijo at Merck said that companies that "would keep saying they don't find women to occupy senior roles, they have a big problem".
"Either the management process they may have is not really efficient or effective, or they are using this probably as an excuse."
Holst at DIW pointed out that German companies accepted voluntary quotas back in 2001, "but that simply didn't work".
She urged government fiscal and family policy measures to make it easier for women to have careers, pointing to a conservative culture still prevalent in parts of western Germany that expects women to stay at home.
"Reality has changed," she said, "but things haven't necessarily changed at the same pace in people's heads".
Dubai (AFP) - Dubai plans to build a tower that will stand higher than its Burj Khalifa, currently the world's tallest skyscraper, property developer Emaar said Sunday.
The viewing tower will cost around $1 billion (880 million euros) and will be "a notch" taller than Burj Khalifa, Emaar chairman Mohamed Alabbar told reporters as he revealed details of the project.
But he said that the final height will be announced upon completion, adding that his company would like to present the tower as a "gift to the city before 2020," the year Dubai hosts the world Expo trading fair.
Designed by Spanish-Swiss architect Santiago Calatrava Valls, the tower will have observation decks, in addition to 18 to 20 mixed-use floors that will host restaurants and a boutique hotel, Alabbar said.
Burj Khalifa is 828 metres (2,700 feet) high and it cost $1.5 billion to build. It was opened in January 2010.
Alabbar described the new structure as an "elegant monument" which would add value to property being developed by the company along the city's creek.
"Many would like to have a view" when considering buying a property, he said.
The tower will be slender, evoking the image of a minaret, and will be anchored to the ground with sturdy cables, Emaar said.
Dubai has established a reputation for building dozens of futuristic skyscrapers, which have transformed its skyline.
Saudi Arabia's Kingdom Holding is building a tower in Jeddah that is planned to surpass Burj Khalifa, rising more than a kilometre.
DUBAI (Reuters) - Dubai's Emaar Properties plans to build a new tower in the emirate to surpass the Burj Khalifa, currently the world's tallest building, Chairman Mohamed Alabbar told reporters on Sunday. The new project comes as Dubai developers continue to announce new schemes despite a softening real estate sector, with the Emaar-built Burj Khalifa expected to be usurped by a tower currently under construction in Saudi Arabia. Alabbar would not confirm the height of the proposed new tower, saying only that it would be "a notch" taller than the Burj Khalifa, which stands at more than 828 metres. Supported by a matrix of cables, the futuristic tower will anchor the redevelopment of the Dubai Creek, the heart of old Dubai where traditional dhow boats continue to ferry goods. The tower, designed by Spanish-Swiss neo-futuristic architect Santiago Calatrava Valls, is slated to have a rooftop courtyard, residential units and a link to a retail plaza. The building is expected to be completed for the Dubai Expo trade fair in 2020, the same year that the kilometre-high Kingdom Tower in Jeddah is due to overtake the Burj Khalifa as the world's tallest building. Funding for the $1 billion project will be 50 percent equity and 50 percent debt, Alabbar said, undeterred by a residential property market that consultancy Cluttons says has softened for at at least five quarters. The balance between supply and demand is very encouraging, Alabbar said. He declined to give figures, but said: "I don't see a pullback. We are doing better than 2015." (Reporting by Hadeel Al Sayegh; Editing by David French and David Goodman)
By Amina Ismail and Haitham Ahmed CAIRO (Reuters) - Tension between Egypt and Italy stems from Cairo's refusal to hand over extensive phone records as part of an investigation into the killing of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni, a senior Egyptian prosecutor said on Saturday. Italy recalled its ambassador to Egypt for consultations on Friday, saying Egyptian investigators on a visit to Rome had failed to provide the evidence needed to resolve the case of Regeni, whose body was found dumped in a roadside ditch nine days after he disappeared in the centre of Cairo. A day after returning from Rome, Egypt's assistant public prosecutor Mustafa Suleiman said Egypt had complied with 98 percent of Italy's requests. Suleiman said the findings of the Italian and Egyptian autopsies were almost identical but that Egypt would not share the phone records sought by Italian investigators. He said Italy had requested all records from the area where Regeni lived, where he disappeared and where he was found, which could amount to nearly a million calls. "This demand goes against the constitution and the law and is a crime for anyone who does it," Suleiman told a news conference in Cairo. "We told them that the public prosecution is doing this itself (looking at phone records) and will give you the results." Suleiman said the Egyptian investigators had also given the Italians the surveillance camera they had asked for but that the relevant footage had automatically deleted. Regeni, a 28-year-old PhD student who was researching the Egyptian labour movement, disappeared on Jan. 25, the anniversary of the start of 2011 uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule. His body was discovered on Feb. 3 and Egyptian investigators found signs of extensive torture. Human rights groups say the wounds bear the hallmarks of Egypt's security agencies and point to the scores of Egyptians who have disappeared over the past year. Egyptian officials have repeatedly denied involvement in his death but have struggled to offer an explanation to satisfy Italy. Italian officials have ridiculed different explanations put forward by Egyptian investigators. Egypt has also asked Italy to explain what happened to Egyptian Adel Moawad, who went missing in the European country last year. Suleiman said Italy handed over a file on Moawad, though his fate remained a mystery. Italy's decision to escalate the diplomatic dispute could dent Italian efforts to become Egypt's key European partner in fighting terrorism and people-smuggling. Italy also has significant economic interests in Egypt, including the giant offshore Zohr gas field, which is being developed by Italy's state energy producer Eni. Suleiman played down the diplomatic tensions, saying his team returned a day early to avoid a strike at Rome airport. However, in a statement carried by state news agency MENA later spokeman Ahmed Abu Zeid said Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri had expressed unease "toward the political direction that is beginning to be taken regarding this file". (Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti; Writing by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Alison Williams and Helen Popper)
Malabo (Equatorial Guinea) (AFP) - Equatorial Guinea's Democratic Opposition Front (FOD) Wednesday urged a boycott of next month's presidential election, saying it would be rigged.
"The FOD calls on its supporters and the population not to vote as this election is anti-constitutional," the group's Guillermo Nguema Ela told a news conference in the capital Malabo.
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema and his government "do not respect either the constitution or the law," Ela said.
A poll initially slated for November is due to go ahead on April 24 following a presidential decree to that effect. No reason was given for the postponement.
The FOD comprises the main opposition Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS), the Popular Union (UP), the Republican Democratic Force (FDR) and a movement seeking autonomy for Bioko, an island with some 300,000 inhabitants off the coast of Cameroon in the Gulf of Guinea.
CPDS secretary general Andres Essono Ondo said numerous "irregularities" surrounded a poll he said would ensure that "President Obiang wins with a big score as a result of fraud."
The CPDS, the only opposition party represented in the former Spanish colony's parliament, said it "will not recognise the president elected in the poll."
Obiang Nguema, 73, has ruled the country with an iron fist for 36 years.
But his regime has regularly come under fire from rights groups for violent suppression of opposition as well as for rampant corruption.
He was re-elected in 2009 with 95.37 of the vote.
The opposition says it abhors the lack of an independent electoral commission as well as the regime's grip on the media.
Interior Minister Clemente Engonga Nguema Onguene, who is also first deputy prime minister, was Monday named head of a government-dominated electoral commission.
Wednesday also saw independent politician Gabriel Nse Obiang Obono of the recently legalised Citizens for the Innovation of Equatorial Guinea say he would stand for the presidency.
Los Angeles (AFP) - Italy's Romano Fenati captured his first Moto3 win of 2016 in dominant style on Sunday at the Grand Prix of the Americas in Austin Texas.
The KTM rider notched his seventh career victory in a time of 41min 14.868sec.
He was 6.612 seconds in front of runner-up Jorge Navarro of Spain n a Honda.
South Africa's series leader Brad Binder powered his KTM past German Philipp Oettl on the final lap to take third, 10.535sec back.
Fenati made a superb start from fifth place on the grid, and on lap eight seizing second place and taking advantage of a mistake by Navarro to take the lead.
"The first part of the race I was thinking that Navarro was in first and too far away," Fenati said.
"But I never gave up. I pushed, I pushed very hard. I'm happy."
As he cruised home the battle for the final podium place unfolded behind him. Oettl, who started from pole for the first time in his career, moved into third when France's Fabio Quartararo was slowed by a late mechanical problem.
But the young German couldn't hold off Binder, who kept his nerve despite a rough ride and was too fast for Oettl on the straight.
"All weekend I've never struggled so much in my life," said Binder, who made it three podiums in three races this season after finishing second in Qatar and third in Argentina.
"When I started to get to the last eight laps I had so much chatter, I didn't know wha to do. I struggled the whole way to the end. When i saw Fabio go off, I saw Philipp wasn't too far so I only tried to keep it clean and I knew I could get him on the last lap."
Beirut (AFP) - Clashes around Syria's second city Aleppo have killed at least 16 pro-regime fighters and 19 members of Al-Qaeda's affiliate and allied rebel groups in 24 hours, a monitor said Sunday.
"Fierce fighting raged past midnight on several fronts in the south of Aleppo province," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah fighters were fighting alongside regime troops and other loyalist militia against jihadists and rebels, the monitoring group said.
"Shelling and fighting in the past 24 hours has left 19 Syrian and non-Syrian members of Al-Nusra dead... while 16 pro-regime fighters were also killed," the Observatory said, adding that one jihadist had blown himself up.
A truce brokered by the United States and Russia, which back opposing sides in Syria's war, does not apply to the fight against jihadists.
Across much of Syria, the February 27 truce has largely held. In areas where Al-Nusra fights alongside allied rebel groups, violence has been frequent despite the ceasefire.
Around Aleppo in particular, "the ceasefire has all but collapsed on the main front lines", Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
"Al-Nusra, (Islamist rebel group) Ahrar al-Sham and their allies are pushing an offensive to take back turf seized around Aleppo by the regime before the truce came into force," he told AFP.
Inside the city, the Observatory said regime barrel bomb strikes on Sunday hit the northeastern district of Al-Haidariyah, injuring a number of people including children.
"This is a new violation of the ceasefire inside the city," Abdel Rahman said.
He said neither the jihadist Islamic State (IS) group nor Al-Nusra were present in the area.
AFP video footage shows at least five people injured including three children residents and aid workers carried to ambulances.
"They're all civilians, there are no militants or Daesh here," one man said, using an Arabic acronym for IS. "They're all children and women."
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An aid worker said that a family -- father, mother and five children -- were injured when a barrel bomb hit the neighbourhood.
Rebels have frequently shelled Sheikh Maqsud, a mainly Kurdish area of Aleppo, leaving dozens of civilians dead since the truce began, Abdel Rahman said.
Syria's Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi said Sunday loyalist Syrian troops were preparing a major operation to retake control of Aleppo city with Russian air cover.
"With our Russian partners we are preparing an operation to free Aleppo and block all illegal armed groups that have not joined or have broken the ceasefire deal," Russia's Interfax news agency quoted Halqi as saying after meeting Russian lawmakers in Damascus.
Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 with anti-government protests but has since evolved into a multi-front war drawing in regional powers.
By Maher Chmaytelli BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A rallying cry to Iraqi Sunnis from former President Saddam Hussein's top surviving aide aims to bolster the old ruling Baath party's appeal with Sunni Muslims fearing new reprisals by Shi'ite militias, experts said. They said the video released on Thursday could also contain a message to Iraq's Shi'ite-led government that former party members might help it fight Islamic State if the Shi'ite militias are kept out of the battle. The broadcast purportedly featuring Ezzat al-Douri coincided with the anniversary of the fall of Saddam's Sunni-led rule when U.S. troops stormed Baghdad in 2003. Reuters could not authenticate it but analysts said it seemed genuine judging by his appearance and speech. Douri, a wiry man with a ginger moustache, evaded capture during the 2003-11 U.S. occupation and Iraqi and U.S. officials accused him of organising an insurgency by minority Sunnis against U.S. troops and the new Shi'ite led authorities in 2005-7. In a previous audio message, the former top official in Saddam's secular Baath party urged Sunnis to join those who had "liberated" half the country, referring to Islamic State, which declared a caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014. This time Douri called on the "sons of Iraq ... to rally behind the flag of the Arab coalition led by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in order to avoid being burnt by the Persian fire." NEW ROLE The latest message follows major gains by the government and its U.S.-led backers against Islamic State and coincides with a push to drive it from Mosul, the largest city in its self-proclaimed caliphate. "Douri and the Baath have no military importance now, but as Daesh (Islamic State) is weakening, the Baath appears to see a role as part of the Saudi-led alliance against Iran," said Hisham al-Hashimi, a Baghdad-based security analyst. The U.S. invasion effectively handed power to Iran's allies in Iraq's Shi'ite majority community, and Tehran's influence became predominant when the American troops pulled out in 2011, leaving the Sunni community feeling marginalised. That marginalisation and revenge attacks by Shi'ite militias were seen as contributing to the rise of Islamic State. A Shi'ite militia has declared it will join the fight to drive Islamic State from Mosul, which has stalled: Iraq's top Sunni official has urged the government not to allow militia to join and Hashimi said Douri appeared to be doing the same. "The Saudi-led alliance is against Iran and also against Daesh (Islamic State) and by aligning the Baath with the Saudis he is adopting the same position; Douri seems to be saying 'My men will be willing to fight Daesh on condition that you keep Irans militias out of Mosul'," Hashimi said. DECLARED DEAD The clip appeared to show Douri, who would now be 73, close up wearing his old green military uniform. Its tribute to Sunni power Saudi Arabia was a new development because the kingdom was a long-time rival of Saddam who had his own regional ambitions. Carried on Saudi-owned al-Hadath TV, it was unclear when it was recorded as the only time indication was a reference to the Saudi-led campaign against Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis which started in March 2015. Iraqi authorities said in April 2015 that Douri had been killed in a military operation and showed pictures of a body that resembled his. An Iraqi government spokesman did not respond to requests for comment this week. Sitting behind a desk and wearing glasses in the video, the man appearing to be Douri read a statement from a pile of papers clutched in both hands that blamed the "U.S. administration for everything that Iran is doing in Iraq with its agents, its militias and its security and military services". The message, said Ihsan al-Shammari, politics professor at Baghdad University, was aimed at stirring sectarian fears to try to bring the Baath party back to the fore. "But democracy is moving forward in Iraq, away from Douri and the Baath," al-Shammari said. (Editing by Philippa Fletcher)
By Arshad Mohammed and Kiyoshi Takenaka HIROSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - John Kerry will not offer an apology for the United States' use of the atomic bomb against Japan when he becomes the first U.S. secretary of state to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum on Monday, a senior U.S. official said. Kerry is visiting the city, which was obliterated by a U.S. atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, to attend gathering of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies that Japan opened on Sunday with a call to end nuclear weapons. The U.S. diplomat is to join his counterparts from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan on Monday to tour the city's atomic bomb museum and to lay flowers at a cenotaph for its victims, becoming the first in his post to do so. "If you are asking whether the secretary of state came to Hiroshima to apologise, the answer is no," a senior U.S. official told reporters late on Sunday. "If you are asking whether the secretary and I think all Americans and all Japanese are filled with sorrow at the tragedies that befell so many of our countrymen, the answer is yes," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added. Kerry's trip could pave the way for an unprecedented visit to Hiroshima by a sitting U.S. president when Barack Obama attends the annual G7 summit to be held in Japan next month. While saying the White House has yet to make a decision, the senior U.S. official said Obama has shown he is willing to do controversial things such as visiting Havana last month. The official suggested there was no "great or insurmountable angst about the optics or the politics of a visit to Hiroshima." He also said there was no Japanese effort to seek a U.S. apology, "nor is there any interest in reopening the question of blame for the sequence of events that culminated in the use of the atomic bomb." Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, who presides over the two-day meeting, on Sunday said ministers will discuss anti-terrorism steps, maritime security and issues related to North Korea, Ukraine and the Middle East. Some of the topics discussed on Sunday included countering violent extremism, the battle against Islamic State militants and the effort to end the five-year Syrian civil war, a second U.S. official told reporters. Maritime security is on the cards after China rattled nerves in the region with its controversial reclamation work in the South China Sea. Some talk of nuclear nonproliferation is inevitable given North Korea's fourth nuclear test in January. During World War II, a U.S. warplane dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, reducing the city to ashes and killing 140,000 people by the end of that year. Hiroshima's suffering is vividly displayed at the museum the ministers will tour, including their charred and torn clothes, a tricycle ridden by a three-year old boy who died from the blast and statues of the victims, their flesh melting from their arms. Three days after dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the United States dropped one on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered six days later. (Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
Actor Gabrielle Carteris, who has been serving as SAG-AFTRA's acting president since the death last month of Ken Howard, was elected president by the union's board to fill out the remainder of Howard's term, SAG-AFTRA announced Saturday. She will serve until August 2017.
A veteran of Beverly Hills, 90210, Carteris was also the union's executive vp, an office she now vacates. The board elected Rebecca Damon to fill that slot. For the first time, SAG-AFTRA's top three officers are all female, the union noted.
"I am deeply honored to be chosen by the SAG-AFTRA National Board to serve the union and its members as president," said Carteris. "Ken was a great union leader, friend and mentor. He left big shoes to fill, but with the support of the national board of directors and the membership, I am committed to improving the lives of all SAG-AFTRA members."
Carteris' election on Saturday positions her as the incumbent president should she decide to run for re-election by the membership next year. She was elected most recently as executive vp last October, with 79 percent of the vote at the SAG-AFTRA biennial convention. (SAG-AFTRA's membership elects the president, but convention delegates elect the exec vp.) She was first elected to that office in 2013.
Prior to executive vp, Carteris was a SAG-AFTRA national vp for Los Angeles, and she served both predecessor unions before the SAG/AFTRA merger in 2012 in a variety of board, officer and delegate positions, including as a member of the G1 (Group for One Union) committee that developed the detailed merger plan.
Over the last several months, Carteris also served as co-chair for the union's commercials negotiations. SAG-AFTRA and the ad industry reached a tentative deal on that contract last week. The board is expected to endorse the contract today or tomorrow, and send it on to the membership for a vote.
Damon is a New York actor and voiceover artist who also served on the G1 and has served on the union's national and local boards and various committees. She is also a board member of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, the union's affiliated charitable group.
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"It's an honor to serve our members, and I'm grateful for Gabrielle's trust and the support of my colleagues," said Damon. "As executive vice president, I will continue working to expand SAG-AFTRA's reach and to increase opportunities for members across the country. Following the peerless example of our beloved late president, Ken Howard, we will focus on member outreach to maximize the solidarity and bargaining strength of our remarkable union."
National executive director David White, the union's top paid staff member, said, "I congratulate Gabrielle Carteris on her election as president of SAG-AFTRA. Gabrielle and I have worked closely together for many years, including most recently on the successful commercials contracts negotiations. I know she understands the needs and aspirations of our members and I am excited to work with her to continue advancing the goals of this union."
He added, "I also congratulate Rebecca Damon on her election as executive vice president. She is a deeply experienced and effective leader who will work with President Carteris and the national board to engage and empower members throughout the country."
Later this year, the union will begin preparations for negotiating the TV/theatrical contract, which expires mid-2017. The corresponding DGA and WGA contracts also expire next year, and it has not yet been announced whether, as is frequently the case, the DGA will negotiate first. Whoever goes first will likely negotiate this fall, well in advance of the expirations. For SAG-AFTRA, those negotiations, whenever they occur, will be conducted under the shadow of the next race for union president, which will take place roughly June through September of next year.
Also on the agenda is the merger of the SAG and AFTRA health plans. An AFTRA plan trustee recently said he expected that merger to occur by this coming January, and for Carteris and her Unite for Strength slate, achieving that benchmark may well be critical to electoral success next year. The opposing group, MembershipFirst, is likely to run a vigorous campaign.
Email: jh@jhandel.com
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble gave details of a plan on Sunday to combat tax havens including creating an international network of registers that list the actual owners of companies. A huge leak of documents from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca has shown how offshore firms are used to stash the wealth of the rich and powerful, embarrassing several world leaders. Germany made closer international cooperation on tax evasion a priority during its presidency of the G7 economic powers in 2014/15. Schaeuble told the public broadcaster ARD that if company registers listing the owners of firms were networked internationally, it would be possible to find all the people hiding behind offshore companies. In the European Union, such registers have already been agreed as part of a fourth directive on money laundering that must be implemented at the national level by mid-2017. Schaeuble also pointed to an agreement on automatically swapping tax information, which around 100 countries have now joined. It is due to come into effect in 2017. He said the Panama Papers were ratcheting up the pressure on those that had not joined, such as the United States, to sign up. A government paper seen by Reuters showed other elements of Schaeuble's 10-point plan, including urging Panama and all other holdouts to join the tax data exchange agreement. The paper said the Global Forum of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) should act as a supervisor to check that states were exchanging data and come up with effective sanctions for negligent or uncooperative countries. It also showed that Schaeuble wanted the various national and international blacklists of non-compliant tax havens to be standardized, with an international organization such as the OECD taking the lead. Schaeuble said statutes of limitations for tax offences should only start once a taxpayer had fulfilled his or her obligation to provide information. Banking watchdogs across Europe have begun checking whether lenders have ties to the Panama Papers but Schaeuble said German banks had "largely put things in order already", adding: "We have made a lot of progress in recent years." The paper also said it was "not the task of banks to encourage aggressive tax avoidance" and said those that offered tax-saving schemes should be obliged to disclose these to tax authorities. It said tougher administrative measures were needed to hold firms to account because effective prosecution of misconduct often failed as negligence by an individual could not be proved. It also said tougher rules to combat money laundering had been introduced in Germany's financial sector in recent years and such progress was also needed in the commercial sector. (Reporting by Michelle Martin and Matthias Sobolewski; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
BERLIN (Reuters) - German politicians have called on British Prime Minister David Cameron to do more in tackling the use of offshore companies set up in British overseas territories to evade taxes. "We'll only be convincing on the international stage if we are, first of all, fully compliant in the EU and for me, that includes Britain exerting influence over its overseas territories - we need to make that clear to the Brits in upcoming talks," senior conservative politician Ralph Brinkhaus told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. Carsten Schneider, a budget expert for Germany's Social Democrats, the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition, also said the British prime minister needed to take action in the light of last week's revelations from the "Panama Papers". Media that have seen the files leaked from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca say more than half of the 200,000 offshore companies set up by the firm were registered in the British Virgin Islands, where details of ownership do not have to be filed with authorities. The law firm denies any wrongdoing. "If David Cameron still wants to be taken seriously personally and politically in the fight against tax fraud and tax evasion, Britain needs to close the loopholes in its own country immediately," Schneider told Welt am Sonntag. Earlier on Sunday, Cameron announced he had set up a national task force led by its tax authority and the National Crime Agency to search through the the Panama Papers. Cameron, who has sought to take the lead internationally in tackling tax avoidance and evasion since Britain hosted a G8 summit in 2013, faced calls from political opponents for his resignation last week after revealing he once had a stake in his late father's own offshore investment trust and profited from it. Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, said Britain had a "huge responsibility" as many tax havens are British overseas territories, like the British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands, or Crown Dependencies, such as Jersey and the Isle of Man. (Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has called for offshore companies to become transparent after a huge leak of documents from Panama showed how they are used to stash the wealth of the world's rich and powerful. Governments across the globe have launched probes into possible financial wrongdoing by the world's elite after more than 11.5 million documents were leaked from Panama-based Mossack Fonseca, which has set up around 250,000 businesses in the last four decades. "We need complete transparency worldwide," Schaeuble wrote in a guest contribution due to be published in German newspaper Bild am Sonntag on Sunday. He wrote that he would, in the coming week, make concrete suggestions on how to tackle the misuse of offshore firms. Schaeuble urged Panama to finally allow a tax agreement with Germany to be implemented. "A bilateral tax agreement between Germany and Panama was negotiated three years ago but Panama has not signed it. I expect the Panamanian government to switch to the honest camp after these embarrassing revelations," he wrote. (Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Helen Popper)
Jane Birkin, is that you?
Nope, just supermodel Gigi Hadid, rocking a brand new '70s-inspired 'do and killer lady boss pantsuit by Versace.
The 20-year-old traded in her boho waves for a piecey, layered look with blunt bangs as she arrived at the MTV Movie Awards in Burbank, Calif. on Saturday night. To keep the ensemble from looking too Kate Hudson circa 2002, Hadid added a few modern touches, including a metallic gold phone clutch and a beaded choker by Lili Claspe.
The new look is a 180 from her last red carpet appearance at the Daily Front Row Awards, where she donned a see-through white gown and beachy waves, but this is one change we can get behind.
BOSS: Gigi Hadid in pinstripes at the MTV Movie Awards. (Photo: Getty Images)
Lima (AFP) - Three soldiers and a civilian were killed, and seven others wounded, in two attacks by guerrillas in the jungles of central Peru, on the eve of presidential elections.
Authorities blamed remnants of the Shining Path communist guerrilla group, which was largely crushed in the 1990s but still has members hiding in the jungle.
The three soldiers and a driver were killed as they were taking forces to guard voting stations in the central Junin region.
"Special forces and supporting aircraft were sent to take control of the area and remove the military personnel that still remains in place," the Joint Command of the Armed Forces said in a statement.
The guerrillas first struck at Hatun Asha, located in a jungle zone considered a stronghold of the guerrillas and a major coca-producing area.
In a second attack, they targeted a military ship on the Apurimac River in the south, wounding two soldiers, authorities said.
President Ollanta Humala condemned the "insane" violence.
"Terrorism and those who collude with it have no place in our society or in our family," said Humala.
Mariano Cucho, the head of the National Office of Electoral Processes, insisted that "this attack will not tarnish the elections."
Some 23 million Peruvians are called to vote on Sunday for a new president and members of congress.
Leading the polls is conservative candidate Keiko Fujimori, whose father Alberto Fujimori waged a fierce conflict against the Shining Path when he was president from 1990 to 2000.
Around 69,000 people were killed between 1980 and 2000 in the conflict with the Shining Path, according to the country's Truth and Reconciliation commission.
"Peru has lived through these violent periods and we are working to bring peace to the country," Humala told a news conference.
"All these demented acts do is unite the Peruvian people more."
Authorities say remnants of the guerrilla group have joined forces with drug gangs and remain active in the remote mountains and jungles.
Peru is one of the biggest coca leaf and cocaine producers in the world, according to the United Nations and US authorities.
Paris-Roubaix winner Mathew Hayman admitted he had been hoping rival Tom Boonen would win the one-day classic race for a record fifth time.
Australian Hayman, 37, pipped Boonen, 35, in a sprint finish to deny the joint-record four-time winner the chance to move one clear of his Belgian countryman Roger De Vlaeminck.
And despite celebrating the greatest win of his career, Hayman said he would have been happy to finish second to Boonen.
"I would have liked to see him win and get the record, I'll be honest," admitted Hayman, who had twice before finished in the top 10 at the 'Hell of the North'.
"He's the king of the race, I followed his career when he was a young rider, being on the podium at such a young age (at 21 in 2002, his first Paris-Roubaix).
"For me it was surreal riding into the velodrome with Tom, whom I have a lot of respect for.
"I would've been happy with second behind Tom."
But reaching the decisive final lap and a half of the outdoor velodrome in Roubaix at the end of a 257.5km trek from Compiegne, near Paris, in a group of five riders left Hayman ready to gamble.
"I went into the velodrome with Tom but the others came back. I still felt everyone was pretty tired.
"I decided to hit out and go for it but I did get worried when I saw the sign for 200-metres.
"It's a long way out, but in the velodrome 200-metres is a long way when you have to come on the high side with tired legs."
Hayman's previous most prestigious victory was gold in the 2006 Commonwealth Games road race, as well as winning the modest Paris-Bourges race in 2011.
- 'Surreal state' -
"I was in a pretty surreal state being in the final because it's not something I'm used to. But I was strangely relaxed with everything I was doing."
Hayman's very participation had been in doubt after he broke his arm in a crash during the Omloop Het Nieuswblad race in late February, after which his team had ruled him out of the entire Spring Classics season.
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"The only emotion is total disbelief," said Hayman.
"I had a fracture in my radius of the right arm. The doctors were pretty sure that all my classics were done but I really wanted to get back as quickly as possible.
"I spent a lot of time on the home trainer in own virtual world, spending time in the garage training."
Despite missing out on his historic effort, Boonen was gracious in defeat.
"Mathew was the rider nobody was really looking at," he said about the last few kilometres when the challengers had been whittled down to a final five.
"(Edvald) Boasson Hagen is fast, (Ian) Stannard is strong and Sep (Vanmarcke) is good on the cobblestones.
"So everyone was just in those last 4-5km looking a bit (at each other). There were attacks left and right. After four or five attacks I thought maybe this is the right moment.
"I went myself and when Matt passed me he was really going strong.
"A guy like this really deserves a victory like this for helping people out and being in finals but not getting the win."
Boonen said he was undecided about his future but for three-time former winner Fabian Cancellara, who finished down in 40th and 7min 35sec back after a heavy crash on the cobbles, this was the end.
"One fall doesn't change anything, it's like that, it's a unique race," said the 35-year-old Swiss, who is retiring at the year's end.
"The day started well but it didn't finish the way I wanted it to.
"In the end I'm happy -- you need a lot of luck and today I didn't have any. That's the way it is. Paris-Roubaix really is the 'Hell of the North'."
LIMA (Reuters) - Center-right candidate Keiko Fujimori should win the first round of Peru's presidential election on Sunday, but failing to win more than half the votes will likely face either market favorite Pedro Pablo Kuczynski or leftist Veronika Mendoza in a runoff, a new poll by Ipsos showed on Saturday. The Ipsos poll, which surveyed 7,240 people on Saturday, gave Fujimori 35.8 percent of the vote, Kuczynski 21.0 percent and Mendoza 20.1 percent. The expected second-place finishers are statistically tied as the poll has a 1.2 percent margin of error. Support for Fujimori fell from 37.7 percent on April 6, the poll showed. (Reporting by Teresa Cespedes; Writing by Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Bill Rigby)
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's cabinet on Sunday unanimously approved a plan for reducing greenhouse gases and increasing energy efficiency to benefit the economy. Government officials expect the cumulative benefit to Israel's economy would reach more than 30 billion shekels ($8 billion), the finance, energy, environment and economy ministries said in a statement. "We intend to continue to invest in resources as needed to further reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions," Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon said. Under the plan, which follows last year's international climate accord in Paris, Israel will grant 500 million shekels in guarantees for loans to boost energy efficiency and 300 million shekels in grants for projects that will lead to efficiency in industry, the business sector and municipalities. Israel has committed to cut per capita greenhouse gas emissions to 7.7 tCO2e (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent) by 2030. This represents a reduction of 26 percent over emissions in 2005. Cabinet ministers said they would examine ways to lower the use of coal and encourage the transition to natural gas to lead to a substantial drop in air pollution. They also will study measures to help make transportation more efficient and cut travel times, while setting up a team to remove barriers to encourage Israel's clean-tech sector and give tax incentives to encourage the use of renewable energy and promote green building projects. (Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Stephen Powell)
By Dan Williams JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A half-year-long surge in Palestinian street attacks against Israelis is waning, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, while Hamas accused the U.S.-backed Palestinian leadership of treachery for helping Israel stem the violence. Since October, Palestinians have killed 28 Israelis and two U.S. citizens in knife, car-ramming and gun assaults. In recent weeks, these have slowed from near-daily occurrences to more sporadic incidents. The last fatal attack took place on March 9. During this wave of violence, Israeli forces killed at least 190 Palestinians, 129 of whom Israel says were assailants. Many others were shot dead during clashes and protests. Palestinians and foreign critics have accused Israel of excessive force. Drivers behind the bloodshed include Palestinian bitterness over long-stalled statehood negotiations, greater Jewish access to a disputed Jerusalem shrine, and Islamist-led calls for Israel's destruction. In public remarks to his cabinet, Netanyahu said Israeli security forces' "very firm action against incitement" and their foiling of assaults had led to "a significant drop-off in the scale of terror attacks". But he told the forum: "I say this with great caution, because the trend can be reversed." Netanyahu made no mention of Israel's security cooperation with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's U.S.-backed administration in the occupied West Bank, where much of the violence has occurred. Israeli and Palestinian officials on several occasions cited a degree of security cooperation without going into details. Israeli media has reported close monitoring by both sides of social media in a bid to identify would-be assailants. Many Palestinians regard security cooperation with Israel as collaborating with the enemy. Palestinian experts say many of the young and often leaderless assailants have lashed out in solidarity with others who were killed carrying out attacks, with social media and cellphone footage of the incidents amplifying popular outrage. Hamas, the powerful Islamist group that exercises de facto control of the Gaza Strip, on Sunday condemned as "very grave" what it described as the arrest of three West Bank Palestinians by Abbas's forces on suspicion of planning to attack Israel. "Such cooperation aims to abort the Palestinian uprising and targets the resistance," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said. But Palestinian authorities in the West Bank played down the case, saying the three were tracked down at the request of their families after their went missing. The last instance of a Palestinian carrying out a fatal attack in Israel occurred on March 9, when an American tourist was stabbed to death in Tel Aviv. The assailant was killed. (Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ali Sawafta; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Raissa Kasolowsky)
JERUSALEM (AP) Israel's prime minister says there has been a significant drop in the rate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis.
Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he was citing the figures of Israel's Shin Bet security service carefully because "this trend could be reversed." But there have been no casualties over the past two and half weeks, the slowest stretch in a seven-month wave of stabbings, shootings and vehicular attacks that has killed 28 Israelis and two Americans.
During this time, about 187 Palestinians have died by Israeli fire. Israel says most of them were attackers, and the rest died in clashes with Israeli security forces.
Israel blames the attacks on incitement by Palestinian leaders and social media. Palestinians say the violence stems from frustration at nearly five decades of military occupation.
Cairo (AFP) - Italy's ambassador to Egypt left Cairo on Sunday after Rome recalled him over a lack of progress in the probe into the murder of an Italian student, an airport official and a diplomatic source said.
Italy, a key ally of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's regime, recalled Maurizio Massari after last week's inconclusive meetings between Italian investigators and an Egyptian team that visited Rome to present their findings into Giulio Regeni's murder.
Regeni, a 28-year-old Cambridge University PhD student, had been researching labour unions when he disappeared on January 25 from central Cairo.
His badly mutilated body was found more than a week later by the side of a road on the outskirts of the Egyptian capital.
During the meetings in Rome, Italy had demanded thousands of phone records to investigate the murder, which Egypt's assistant state prosecutor Mostafa Suleiman said was a demand that "violates the Egyptian constitution".
Suleiman, who headed the Egyptian team that visited Rome, said the Italian investigators "conditioned further judicial cooperation on this demand" which his team flatly refused.
Suleiman said the Italian investigators also demanded CCTV footage of the area from where Regeni had disappeared. He said the footage had been automatically deleted by then.
On Sunday, Massari left for Rome after Italy recalled him for consultations, an Italian diplomatic source told AFP. An airport official also confirmed he had departed Cairo.
Italian officials have greeted Egypt's explanations concerning Regeni's murder with outright scepticism.
They suspect he was killed by elements in the Egyptian security services, an accusation which Cairo has steadfastly denied.
Regeni's murder has troubled Cairo-Rome diplomatic ties given that Prime Minister Matteo Renzi shares a close relationship with Sisi, helping in turn to generate hugely valuable business contracts for Italian companies in Egypt.
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In terms of action, Italy's options are limited.
Moves under consideration include a warning to its citizens against travel to Egypt, but the Regeni case has already caused a slump in visitor numbers from Italy.
Rome is also considering asking for support from its European Union partners to try to put pressure on the Egyptian government over the case.
Media coverage of the Regeni case has served as a focus for other disappearances and rights abuses in Egypt.
Since ousting his Islamist predecessor Mohamed Morsi in 2013, Sisi has overseen a blistering crackdown targeting all forms of dissent.
Hundreds of Morsi supporters have been killed, tens of thousands jailed and hundreds more including Morsi sentenced to death or lengthy jail terms.
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya and Uganda's presidents and oil company executives will meet on Monday to hold further discussions on a route for a pipeline to transport the two countries' oil, the Kenyan president's spokesman said on Sunday. Resolving the pipeline route is crucial to helping oil companies involved in Uganda and Kenya to make final investment decisions on developing oil fields. "President Uhuru Kenyatta will host Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni tomorrow ... They will discuss the construction of the Uganda-Kenya oil pipeline, a key plank of the Northern Corridor Infrastructure Projects," Manoah Esipisu said in a statement. Last wee, Tanzania's presidency said that Total, which has a stake in Uganda's crude oil discoveries, had set aside $4 billion to build a pipeline from Ugandan fields to the Tanzanian coast and that Tanzania wants the three-year construction schedule shortened. The comments raised the stakes in a competition to secure the pipeline with Kenya, which wants Ugandan oil to be exported across its territory and wants the pipeline to link up with Kenyan oil fields. "Kenya favours the northern route through Lokichar, because as part of the Lamu Port, South Sudan, Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) project, it would transform infrastructure and the way of life of the people in the towns and counties across its path," Esipisu said. He added that officials from Tullow Oil, Total and Chinas CNOOC had been invited to the meeting. Total has previously raised security concerns about the Kenyan route. Sections of the Kenyan pipeline could run near Somalia, from where militants have launched attacks on Kenya. But industry officials have also said that connecting Kenyan fields, which have estimated total recoverable reserves of 600 million barrels, with those in Uganda would make the pipeline project cheaper because costs would be shared. Both Kenya and Uganda, which the government says has a total 6 billion barrels of crude, have yet to begin commercial production. Tullow Oil and partner Africa Oil first struck oil in Lokichar in northwest Kenya in 2012. Africa Oil and Tullow were 50-50 partners in blocks 10 BB and 13T, where the discoveries were made. Africa Oil has since sold a 25 percent stake in those blocks to A.P. Moller-Maersk. (Reporting by George Obulutsa; Editing by David Goodman)
G7 foreign ministers on Sunday began two days of talks in Hiroshima, with John Kerry's visit to the atom-bombed city -- the first-ever by a US secretary of state -- overshadowing the broader agenda.
Kerry's landmark trip is seen as possibly paving the way for Barack Obama to become the first serving US president to visit the thriving metropolis next month, when he comes to Japan for a Group of Seven summit.
The meeting which started Sunday also includes top diplomats from nuclear-armed Britain and France, as well as Canada, Germany, Italy, host Japan and the European Union.
It is part of the run-up to the G7's rotating annual summit, scheduled this year from May 26-27 in another part of Japan.
The ministers were discussing issues including the Middle East, the refugee crisis, the conflict in Ukraine and global terrorism.
Japan also hopes to highlight rising territorial tensions in the South China Sea, where Beijing and some Southeast Asian nations have clashed, and North Korea's nuclear sabre-rattling.
Ministers have so far said little about the content of the meetings, though Kerry tweeted that they had a "big foreign policy agenda to cover" -- mentioning topics such as the Islamic State group as well as "Asia regional issues and global threats".
But it is the location of the talks that has captured the imagination of the Japanese public. Many hope it will promote greater understanding of Japan's staunch anti-nuclear stance as the only country to suffer atomic attack.
Speculation has been building that Kerry's planned visit to a Hiroshima blast memorial on Monday could see the US secretary of state issue an unprecedented apology.
But a State Department official said that was not on the cards.
"If you are asking whether the secretary of state came to Hiroshima to apologise, the answer is no," the official, who asked not to be named, told reporters travelling with Kerry.
"If you are asking whether the secretary and I think all Americans and all Japanese are filled with sorrow at the tragedies that befell so many of our countrymen, the answer is yes."
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Japanese foreign minister Fumio Kishida, who represents Hiroshima in parliament, hopes to issue a "Hiroshima Declaration" at the meeting to promote nuclear disarmament.
Kerry and his counterparts are on Monday scheduled to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, which houses the ruins of the iconic domed building gutted by the blast, and an accompanying museum.
On Sunday they visited one of Japan's most famous sites, the seaside Itsukushima shrine that dates to the late sixth century.
- Shared history -
The first American bomb on August 6, 1945, killed 140,000 people in Hiroshima, including survivors of the explosion who died afterwards from severe radiation exposure. Three days later another blast killed some 74,000 people in Nagasaki.
Japan gave up the fight six days after Nagasaki, forswearing militarism and reinventing itself as an economic dynamo -- protected, ironically, by the nuclear-armed United States.
When asked about its place under Washington's nuclear umbrella, Kishida said ahead of the meeting that Japan was mindful of global security realities, citing North Korea as a key threat.
Washington hopes to use Kerry's visit to highlight Obama's anti-nuclear stance.
"Progress on nuclear disarmament must be made in a way that reduces nuclear and security risks for ourselves, our allies and all humankind," Kerry told a local newspaper.
American tourist James Huddleston, visiting the memorial park with his wife and three children, said the top American diplomat's visit was good for both the US and Japan.
"It's important," said the 36-year-old sales manager from Detroit.
"(This) is a big part of the history of both countries."
Hiroshima resident Tatsumi Yamasaki, 78, said a visit by Obama would speak volumes.
"That act itself would mean a lot for people in Hiroshima," he said.
However, a small group of protesters gathered in front of the atomic dome on Sunday to condemn the G7's attitude and any Obama visit.
"They came all the way to Hiroshima to say they would get rid of nuclear weapons -- it's all lies," said organiser Kyoko Taniguchi.
Kuwait City (AFP) - Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have reached a deal to resume production at the disputed Khafji offshore oilfield, Kuwait's acting oil minister said on Tuesday.
"An agreement has been reached with the Saudi side at Aramco to resume production at Khafji field in small quantities," Anas al-Saleh told parliament during a debate.
Saleh, who is also the finance minister, said the quantities will increase "gradually" after resolving environmental issues over which the field was shut down.
A number of maintenance contracts have been signed in preparation for the resumption of production, the minister said without saying when production will resume or how much oil will be pumped.
Production at Khafji, which pumped over 300,000 barrels per day and was jointly operated by the two countries, was halted in October 2014. Riyadh cited environmental issues for the shutdown.
Khafji is part of the neutral zone which is operated jointly by the two Arab nations and production is divided equally.
The other field is Wafra where production was also halted in May last year. Wafra pumped around 200,000 bpd.
Kuwait had initially said that Saudi Arabia unilaterally stopped production due to pollution concerns even though it was entitled to five years' notice under the joint agreement.
The two Gulf neighbours began talks in June to resolve the dispute.
Khafji is jointly operated by Kuwait Gulf Oil Co. (KGOC) and Saudi Aramco Gulf Operations, while Wafra is operated by KGOC and Saudi Arabian Chevron.
Industry sources say Kuwaiti authorities were unhappy with Saudi Arabia for renewing an operating agreement for the Wafra field with Saudi Arabian Chevron for 30 years in 2009 without consulting them.
In response, it stopped issuing or renewing visas for Chevron foreign employees.
The dispute has been a blow to Kuwait which, unlike its much larger neighbour, has little spare output capacity to compensate for drops in production.
Kuwait is pumping around 3.0 million bpd.
A massive explosion and blaze apparently sparked by a stray firework during an unauthorised display killed over 100 people and injured scores more at a temple in southern India Sunday.
Thousands had packed overnight into the Hindu temple complex in Kerala state where the firework is thought to have landed on a stockpile of others, triggering a huge blast that tore through concrete buildings.
"It came like a storm, throwing everyone to the ground. There were bodies all over the place and the injured were writhing in pain," said Anish Kumar, who had gone with his friends to see the display at the Puttingal Devi temple in Kollam district.
"I was horrified to see hundreds of men and women on the ground lifeless," said Kumar, who lost one of his friends in the disaster.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the accident as "heart-rending and shocking beyond words" and toured the complex and met the injured in a hospital.
"The incident is so grave that it is very difficult to describe in words. People who were 200 metres away were also hurt," Modi said.
"And right now the doctor was telling me that some of the blasts were such that some peoples' bodies were blown apart."
A team of specialist doctors were deployed from New Delhi amid reports of horrific burn injuries. The navy and air force also sent helicopters to evacuate the most critically injured, officials said.
"Total death total is 106 with 75 of those identified and 31 unknown," a spokesman for Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy told AFP.
Firefighters and police had battled at the temple in the coastal town of Paravur to douse the fire and rescue those trapped at the complex. But residents said some victims were charred beyond recognition.
Video footage showed a series of explosions and fireworks erupting about 3am (2130 GMT Saturday) along with huge plumes of smoke.
Local residents carried the bloodied and injured victims in their arms from the scene. They told of the force of the explosion sending concrete slabs and other building parts slamming into the crowd.
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Chandy and other officials said the temple had gone ahead with the fireworks display despite being refused permission.
"I had denied permission for this fireworks because they had asked permission for conducting it on a competition basis," Kollam district collector A. Shainomal told the NDTV network.
The Kerala government ordered a judicial inquiry into the cause of the disaster and Chandy's spokesman told AFP that police have registered a criminal case against temple authorities.
- Amputations needed -
Local lawmaker N.K. Premachandran said a fireworks competition traditionally held every year between different groups had occurred at the temple, drawing thousands to watch.
One firework landed on a building that was storing the rest of the pyrotechnic material, triggering the explosion, he said.
Fires and stampedes are not uncommon at temples and during religious occasions, often because of poor security arrangements and lax safety standards.
Emergency room doctor Rajesh Kumar said those who poured into his hospital were suffering from head injuries and burn wounds, and several had needed amputations.
"Seven people had partial amputations in the blast and we had to amputate surgically. Most of the injured had head, torso and internal injuries, a few had burn injuries," he told AFP at a hospital in the state capital Thiruvananthapuram.
Modi announced 200,000 rupees ($3,005) in compensation for the families of those killed and 50,000 rupees for those injured.
Messages of condolence poured in from around the world, with Pope Francis's office saying the pontiff was "praying for all affected by this tragedy".
Britain's Prince William and wife Kate said through a spokesman that they were "saddened by the news" after arriving in India on Sunday for an official tour.
Navy spokesman D.K Sharma said helicopters would transport the injured to larger hospitals in Thiruvananthapuram and also to Kochi city.
The fire comes as Kerala -- governed by the Congress party, which is in opposition at the national level -- heads to the polls in one of five state elections being held in India this month and next.
By Sivaram V PARAVOOR, Kerala (Reuters) - A fire and explosions during a fireworks display to mark the start of the local Hindu new year killed 100 people and injured more than 380 at a temple in India's southern Kerala state on Sunday. Thousands of devotees had packed into the Puttingal Devi temple, about 70 km from the state capital Thiruvananthapuram in the coastal district of Kollam, to watch the display that started at midnight and went on four hours. The blaze started when a cracker fell onto a shed where the fireworks were stored, sparking a string of powerful explosions that blew the roof of the administrative block of the temple and caused another building to collapse, residents said. "There were body parts on the floor and on the roof there was an arm," Anita Prakash, a resident said. "In the past, there's been fireworks but not on this scale." Kerala is studded with temples managed by rich and powerful trusts that often flout local regulations. Each year temples hold fireworks displays, often competing to stage the most spectacular ones, with judges who decide the winners. Kollam district magistrate A. Shainamol said people living in the area near the temple had complained about the danger of these fireworks in the past. Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew to Kollam with a team of doctors to help state authorities cope with the large number of injured, moving swiftly to head off criticism of a lack of public safety. "The fire at the temple in Kollam is heart-rending and shocking beyond words," he said in a Twitter post. "My thoughts are with families of the deceased and prayers with the injured." Modi has faced public criticism in the past for failing to respond quickly to disasters such as the floods in Chennai late last year. Large parts of the metropolis were under water for days before government help arrived. Earlier this month, a flyover under construction in the eastern city of Kolkata for years collapsed killing 27 people, prompting allegations that shoddy material was used and that the metal parts had corroded during the years of delay. NO PERMISSION Television images from the devastated temple site showed people, some clutching children with burn injuries, being taken to hospitals. Others carried out charred bodies of victims. Kerala's Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala told Reuters that 60 of the 100 dead had been identified while the number of people admitted to hospitals in Kollam and the state capital had risen to 383. With Kerala in the midst of an election for a new state assembly, the fire quickly turned into a political issue as local leaders demanded an investigation. In Kerala, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) trails its Congress party and communist rivals. The BJP has focused on building up grassroots strength in the state for decades. Kerala's Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said the Kollam district administration had denied the temple authorities permission for the display and the government would investigate why they went ahead anyway. "There was no permission to even store the fireworks," he said. Witnesses said they had repeatedly warned the local administration about the danger of firework displays in the crowded neighborhood. Chennithala said a case for illegal possession of explosives had been registered against the temple. The temple trust was not immediately available for comment. The explosion from the fireworks was so strong that some parts of the temple roof caved in. Local media showed bulldozers trying to clear the area of the debris. The Puttingal temple is one of the oldest in the state. It was built on the site of an ant hill where locals believe a goddess appeared centuries ago. (Additional reporting by Jose Devasia in THIRUVANANTHAPURAM and Vipin Das M. in NEW DELHI; Writing by Sanjeev Miglani and Sankalp Phartiyal; Editing by Ryan Woo and David Clarke)
Idomeni (Greece) (AFP) - At least 260 people needed medical attention Sunday after police fired tear gas at migrants as they tried to break through the Greek-Macedonia border, where over 11,000 people are stranded, a charity said.
It was the latest violence to erupt at the flashpoint Idomeni crossing, where huge numbers of migrants and refugees -- many fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and beyond -- have been camped out since mid-February after Balkan states closed their borders, cutting off access to northern Europe.
Macedonian police accused the crowds of hurling stones and other objects at them in a bid to break down the fence, saying they had used tear gas to protect themselves.
"Two hundred people were treated by our medical unit for breathing problems, 30 for wounds caused by plastic bullets and 30 for other injuries," Achilleas Tzemos of French medical charity Doctors Without Borders told AFP.
The incident, amid the EU's worst migration crisis since World War II, was sparked by fresh rumours that the Idomeni border crossing into Macedonia, largely closed since mid-February, was about to open.
According to a Greek police source, hundreds of migrants had gathered by the fence to demand the border be opened. When they tried to force the barrier, Macedonian police began firing tear gas.
The clashes came as an EU delegation visited Turkey and urged the country to carefully implement a deal under which all migrants arriving at the bloc's borders from Turkey now face being returned there.
At the scene, protestors with their faces covered with scarves or smeared with toothpaste as a makeshift protection against tear gas could be seen hurling rocks at the fence, an AFP correspondent said, adding that some fainted in the suffocating atmosphere.
Part of the fence appeared to have been torn down.
Others ran for cover as tear gas grenades exploded nearby, sending clouds of gas wafting into the air.
Macedonian police, however, denied that anyone had been injured by plastic bullets.
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- 'Not using bullets' -
"We are not using any kind of bullets as they are forbidden by law in Macedonia. We are not using batons as we are on the other side of the fence," spokeswoman Liza Bendevska told AFP.
"We are using all allowed chemical means."
Giorgos Kyritsis, a spokesman for Greece's migration coordination agency, however, condemned what he called the "dangerous" and "reprehensible" tactic of using "plastic bullets, tear gas and stun grenades".
Earlier, another Macedonian police spokesman said the mob had hurled stones and other objects at police, injuring three of them, and that they had used tear gas to try and break up the protest.
"A large group of refugees attempted to destroy the razor fence and enter Macedonia. They threw stones, metal things and other objects towards police," spokesman Toni Angelovski said.
Macedonian police had initially told AFP it was Greek police who were responsible, but Angelovski later confirmed they too had begun "using tear gas and all allowable means to protect (themselves) and the border".
"No single migrant managed to cross on the Macedonian side, but (the situation) is still tense," he added.
An official at a migrant centre on the Macedonian side of the border said three 500-strong groups of people had tried to breach the barrier in three different places.
- Symbol of misery -
The makeshift encampment at Idomeni, where people are living in squalid and overcrowded conditions, has become a symbol of the misery faced by thousands who have fled war and poverty to reach Europe.
Efforts by the Greek authorities to persuade migrants to leave Idomeni and move to nearby reception centres have not been successful, with many people preferring to stay put in the hope the border will be opened.
Sunday's incident came a day after four women and a child drowned off the Greek island of Samos, in the first deaths in the Aegean Sea since the controversial EU-Turkey deal to stem the flow of refugees took effect three weeks ago.
The EU delegation led by Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders, whose country currently holds the European Union presidency, on Sunday visited Istanbul nearly a week after Greece began shipping migrants back to Turkey under the terms of the agreement.
Meanwhile, at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, where some 4,500 migrants have set up a huge makeshift camp, several hundred people protested against efforts to move them to dedicated reception centres.
Antananarivo (AFP) - Madagascar's President Hery Rajaonarimampianina on Sunday appointed a new prime minister, two days after the island nation was plunged into confusion when the previous premier denied having stepped down.
The new head of government was named as current interior minister Olivier Solonandrasana, according to a statement read out by Roger Ralala, secretary general of the presidency.
The development comes after the presidency on Friday announced the resignation of Prime Minister Jean Ravelonarivo following weeks of political conflict, only for Ravelonarivo to swiftly deny the claim.
The president sought to clarify the situation on Sunday, telling reporters he "had received the prime minister's resignation".
According to local media, Ravelonarivo and Rajaonarimampianina had for weeks been at loggerheads over issues including the poor condition of the island's main roads and rising crime in the capital Antananarivo.
Solonandrasana, 51, is expected to form a new government in the coming days.
The Indian Ocean island nation has endured several years of turmoil after Marc Ravalomanana was ousted as president in a 2009 coup that led to the withdrawal of foreign investment and donor money.
In 2013, a presidential election that was designed to resolve complex power struggles brought Rajaonarimampianina to power.
Ravelonarivo took office as prime minister last year.
Madagascar remains one of the world's poorest countries, heavily dependent on foreign aid, and any renewed political trouble could threaten development.
The country off Africa's southeastern coast with a population of 23 million is famed for its unique wildlife, the result of evolution through geographical isolation.
MEXICO CITY (AP) An Austrian laboratory has not found evidence that can confirm that remains found in a trash dump in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero belong to 43 students who disappeared in September 2014, authorities announced.
The Attorney General's Office said in a statement late Friday night that the Institute of Legal Medicine at the University of Innsbruck examined samples including hair and physical remains.
The office said it was not possible to establish genetic profiles through DNA testing so far, though further testing is still being done with those results to be released in the future.
Mexican investigators have theorized that police handed the students over to drug gang members who killed them and incinerated the bodies at the garbage dump.
That finding has been disputed by two outside groups of experts who examined the case and concluded there was no evidence at the dump of a fire large enough to consume all the bodies. Relatives of the students have also publicly doubted the government investigation.
The Attorney General's Office said the Austrian lab determined that some of the hair samples were human, while others were of animal origin.
Those found to be human did not yield a match with DNA sequences of family members of the students.
The case of the missing students has attracted national and international condemnation, and the government's perceived mishandling of it has dogged the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto.
- Spain's Marc Marquez put his Honda on pole for the MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas for the fourth straight year, extending his dominance in Austin, Texas. The Honda rider, who won the first three editions of the race in the hills outside the Texas capital from pole position, will try to make it four in a row on Sunday after topping qualifying with a time of 2min 3.188sec. He will start from the front row of the grid alongside his two great Yamaha rivals Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi.
AFP
Istanbul (AFP) - The world's Islamic countries began their annual meeting Sunday in Istanbul, where they are set to focus on the Palestinian cause, conflicts in member states and combating terrorism.
The meeting of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) comes once again at a time of turmoil in many Muslim nations, with conflicts in Syria and Yemen dragging on, and several states including Turkey, bloodied by militant attacks.
The 13th annual OIC conference began with senior officials adopting the agenda and will be followed by a foreign ministers meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. Over 30 heads of state and government will attend the summit hosted by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday and Friday.
With guests set to include Saudi King Salman, the event is taking place under the highest security, with police stationed all around the venue in central Istanbul.
The OIC said the summit was to issue a resolution on the Palestinian issue and support for international efforts to relaunch a "collective political process".
The gathering comes at a time of rising Islamophobia in many western nations in response to a spate of attacks by the Islamic State group.
Islamic leaders will also "consider the situation of Muslim communities in non-OIC member States and the issue of combating terrorism."
Turkey has also been a victim of several bloody IS attacks, and the Istanbul summit comes a day after the US warned of a "credible threat" of attacks in the city.
Under Erdogan, who has made Islam one of central themes of his politics, Turkey has upped its economic and political influence throughout the Islamic world, particularly in lands in the Middle East once part of the Ottoman Empire.
However this policy has has not always met with success and frosty relations with several Muslim states, including Egypt, have led some analysts to conclude its aim of "zero problems with neighbours" ended up having exactly the opposite effect.
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In a speech on Saturday, Erdogan hailed the role Turkey has played by hosting nearly three million refugees from neighbouring Syria.
"In the world, there is no state, no country that is capable of assuming such a burden. The events this year that targeted us will not deflect us from this path," he said.
A big question mark hangs over the level of representation from Egypt, which has had strained ties with Turkey since the ousting of Ankara ally Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
Niamey (AFP) - A Niger court on Tuesday granted bail to failed presidential challenger Hama Amadou, who was detained in November on sensational baby trafficking charges that he claimed were politically motivated.
President Mahamadou Issoufou was re-elected to a second term in office with 92 percent of the vote in a March 20 run-off that the opposition boycotted.
His sole challenger Amadou, who was flown to France for medical treatment four days before the second round of voting, announced his candidacy while in detention.
"The decision is clear, he is free as of today," his lawyer Mossi Boubacar said.
"He should be out today or tomorrow," Amadou's doctor Luc Karsenty told AFP in Paris.
A source close to the case in Niger said Amadou would not have to return to his prison in Filingue, 180 kilometres (110 miles) north of the capital Niamey, upon his return.
Amadou Boubacar Cisse, vice-president of the COPA 2016 opposition alliance, said the government "must definitively sort out Amadou's legal status" and called on the president to "stop the continuous harassment of the opposition."
Cisse called for the release of all political prisoners as a condition for accepting the president's offer of talks to ease political tensions in the arid west African state.
"We are all open to dialogue to prevent chaos in the country but there is a pre-condition," he said, adding: "All opposition members who are currently in jail must be freed."
Amadou's supporters have branded the baby trafficking case against him as an attempt to quash his leadership ambitions.
The 66-year-old was detained on November 14, after returning from exile in France, over allegations that he was involved in smuggling babies from Nigeria to wealthy couples in Niger.
The court was supposed to rule on his conditional release on March 14 but put off the decision until March 28, after the second round of the election which the opposition branded a farce.
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About 20 people were accused of involvement in the trafficking of babies, including bankers, leading businessmen and their spouses. Amadou's wife was also detained but released with the other suspects.
The case added to tensions in the uranium-rich country ahead of the election.
Last week, Issoufou proposed establishing a unity government with the opposition.
Reacting to his offer, COPA 2016's Cisse said: "The issue for us is not to take up folding seats in a national unity government ... but to put back democracy on track."
Niamey (AFP) - Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou secured 92 percent of the vote in a controversial run-off ballot boycotted by the opposition, according to official results released Tuesday.
Sunday's election in the impoverished but uranium-rich country was marred by low turnout and the opposition boycott.
Issoufou's sole challenger Hama Amadou, imprisoned since November on shadowy baby trafficking charges, was flown to France for medical treatment days before the second round.
The electoral commission said Amadou won seven percent of the ballots cast.
President Issoufou responded to the announcement of his victory, saying: "During this mandate, I will devote all of my energy to respond to the aspirations of the Nigerien people."
Speaking from the presidential palace, he said that security, strengthening democracy and guaranteeing food supplies would be priorities, adding that he needed "the support of all Nigeriens".
"Let us come together, not waste our energy on vain quarrels," said the president, following the results of the divisive poll.
The poll pitted 64-year-old Issoufou, a former mining engineer nicknamed "the Lion", against Amadou, 66, a former premier and parliament speaker known as "the Phoenix" for his ability to make political comebacks.
Issoufou won 48.4 percent in the first round on February 21. Amadou scored just 17.7 percent in the initial vote.
Voter participation was a crucial issue following the opposition's boycott call.
The COPA 2016 opposition coalition said voter turnout was a mere 11 percent nationwide, despite an initial official estimate of 56 percent.
- 'Pointless quarrels' -
Amadou was forced to campaign from behind bars after being detained on November 14 on baby-trafficking charges he says were concocted to keep him out of the race.
Issoufou, who took office in 2011, campaigned on pledges to bring prosperity to the country and vowed to prevent further attacks from jihadists in its vast remote north, and from Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamists to the south.
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However, just three days before the second round contest, Niger suffered two jihadist attacks -- one in the west claimed by Al-Qaeda's north African affiliate which killed three gendarmes and another by Boko Haram in which a senior army officer died.
Religious experts have warned that the ultra-conservative Wahhabist strain of Islam is taking hold in urban areas although Niger's government says it is "closely monitoring" the issue.
The run-up to the first-round presidential vote was marred by violence between supporters of the rival camps, the arrest of several leading political personalities and a government announcement that it had foiled a coup bid.
However, aside from the jihadist attacks, the run-up to the second round passed off largely without incident.
Addressing reporters on Sunday, Issoufou said: "We should avoid pointless quarrels. The winner, whoever he is, must think about bringing Nigeriens together beyond his own camp, because we face significant challenges."
The West African state, where three-quarters of the population live on less than $2 a day, has only had a multi-party democracy since 1990.
Uranium is the country's main export, with Niger ranked fourth globally after Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia.
After a tussle over the future of uranium mining, Niger and French nuclear energy group Areva agreed a deal on two uranium mines in May 2014.
In late 2011, Niger officially became an oil-exporting country, following the inauguration of a refinery in Olelewa, central-eastern Niger, that is run by the state with help from a Chinese company.
Washington (AFP) - US President Barack Obama said Sunday that the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state is taking place without political interference.
The controversy over the Democratic presidential frontrunner's management of her official correspondence as US top diplomat from 2009 to 2013 has provided a staple Republican line of attack during the campaign for the White House.
"I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department or the FBI, not just in this case but in any case. Period," Obama told Fox News Sunday.
"I do not talk to the attorney general about pending investigations," he added. "I do not talk to FBI directors about pending investigations."
Asked by journalist Chris Wallace whether Clinton would be treated differently were she to win the Democratic nomination, Obama said, "How many times do I have to say it, Chris? Guaranteed."
Obama, who leaves office in January, restated his view that although Clinton in her own words had shown a degree of "carelessness" over her official emails at the State Department, "she has not jeopardized America's national security."
Calling on the former first lady's critics to "keep this in perspective," he said she had done "an outstanding job" during her four years as secretary of state.
Clinton, who is leading the Democratic campaign against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, has said that none of the emails sent over her private server were classified at the time.
She has handed the State Department 52,000 pages of documents relating to her correspondence.
Asked whether the FBI probe has reached its final stages, director James Comey told reporters earlier this week that the agency feels no pressure to wrap up its proceedings before the Democratic convention in July.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton never jeopardized national security in the handling of her emails as his secretary of state. Obama, in an interview broadcast on Fox News Sunday, said Clinton has recognized a carelessness on the email issue in which she used a private server for government business. "But I also think it is important to keep this in perspective," Obama said. "This is somebody who has served her country for four years as secretary of state, and did an outstanding job." Clinton, secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, has said her email arrangement broke no rules and that she will be vindicated in investigations of whether any laws were broken. The government forbids sending or storing classified information outside secure, government-controlled channels. The FBI has taken the server and is investigating the case with U.S. Justice Department attorneys. At least two Republican-led congressional committees are also investigating. The Democratic president was asked if the Justice Department investigation would treat the Clinton case impartially. "I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI, not just in this case, but in any case," said Obama, who leaves office next year. "Guaranteed. Full stop. Nobody gets treated differently when it comes to the Justice Department. Because nobody is above the law," he said. The State Department said this month it has suspended plans for an internal review of whether classified information was properly handled in Clinton's emails at the request of the FBI. The department, complying with a judge's order, has released more than 52,000 emails from Clinton's private server. Republican rivals in the battle for the Nov. 8 presidential election have cited the email controversy in saying Clinton is unfit for the presidency. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Alison Williams)
NIAMEY (Reuters) - Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou won a second term with 92.5 percent of the vote in a run-off election that the opposition coalition chose to boycott, the electoral commission said on Tuesday. Issoufou, an ally of the West in its fight against Islamist insurgents in West Africa, won the first round comfortably last month with 48 percent of votes but failed to clinch the outright majority required to avoid a second round. The candidate who came second, opposition leader Hama Amadou, has been in jail since November on charges relating to a baby-trafficking scandal, but was flown to France for medical treatment last week. Amadou says he is innocent and claims the charges against him are politically motivated. But the size of Issoufou's victory is unlikely to draw significant international criticism, in part because of the boycott, but also because the incumbent has been in power only since 2011. "The Nigerien people have spoken clearly and unequivocally," said Issoufou in a statement in which he laid out his plans for a second term, including increasing security and improving the country's infrastructure. "I hail their political maturity and strong mobilization." The Coalition for an Alternative (COPA), which unites about 20 political parties including Amadou's MODEN, called for a boycott of the polls claiming the process had been tainted by fraud. It described the election as a "sham" and said in a statement on Tuesday that it would refuse to recognize the results. "President Issoufou's mandate expires on April 1, 2016 at midnight. From April 2, our country will have no legitimate president," it said. The turnout of the election was 60 percent, the commission said. The vote is subject to confirmation from the constitutional court. Southern Niger, which borders Nigeria, has been the target of frequent deadly raids by Islamist Boko Haram militants. It also shares borders with Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, where al Qaeda-linked groups are active. Libya, home to Islamic State affiliates, lies on its northern border. (Reporting by Abdoulaye Massalaki; Writing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Edward McAllister; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
Lima (AFP) - Peruvians voted Sunday on whether Keiko Fujimori, daughter of an ex-president jailed for massacres, should become their first female leader in an election marred by alleged vote-buying and deadly attacks.
The 40-year-old daughter of former leader Alberto Fujimori survived attempts to ban her from the race and widespread mistrust over her father's legacy to top the opinion polls ahead of the vote.
She was expected to win through to a second-round runoff against one of her nearest rivals: ex-prime minister and Wall Street banker Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, 77, or left-wing lawmaker Veronika Mendoza, 35.
Keiko Fujimori started the day by cooking sausages in front of the television cameras at her home as her two daughters, husband and mother sat at the breakfast table.
Later she smiled broadly as she cast her vote in the posh Surco district of southern Lima and then struggled with her bodyguards through a mob of television cameras back to her car.
Polling officially started at 8:00 am (1300 GMT) and was due to close at 2100 GMT, though some voting stations in Lima opened their doors about an hour late, AFP reporters saw.
- Election irregularities -
Observers complained that the electoral process was undermined when half the candidates dropped out or were excluded from the running under a tough new electoral law.
Fujimori and other leading candidates were accused of wooing voters with gifts. She and Kuczynski were cleared of the charges.
Three opinion polls published on Friday showed Fujimori was likely to win about a third of the vote, short of the simple majority needed to win outright.
Nine other candidates have either been excluded for irregularities or dropped out for lack of support. One, Gregorio Santos, is running for office from a jail cell where he is detained on corruption charges.
The leader of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, said the January electoral reform that allowed the candidates to be excluded risked turning it into a "semi-democratic election."
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- Attacks before election -
Alberto Fujimori's dark decade in power from 1990-2000 lives in the memory of many Peruvians.
Now 77, he is in jail for crimes against humanity. The courts held him responsible for the massacre of 25 people he said were terrorists in 1991 and 1992.
But many voters love him for crushing the Shining Path communist guerrilla group that carried out attacks and kidnappings.
The conflict reared its head on Saturday, when four soldiers transporting electoral material and a civilian were killed in an attack by remnants of Shining Path still hiding in the jungle, officials said. A separate attack injured two more soldiers.
"That is why we want more security," said Wilfredo Pena, a 55-year-old caretaker who voted for Kuczynski under cloudy skies at a school in Lima.
"We want a change -- safety for citizens and job security."
He rejected Keiko Fujimori however "because of the bad experience of the first (Fujimori) government. We do not want more of the same."
Eighteen-year-old student Angela Rios, voting for the first time, backed Fujimori.
"Hers is the best-organized party. She will strengthen the economy and improve education," Rios said.
"You cannot judge a person on what their father did."
Officials vowed the attacks would not disrupt the election. They said 50,000 troops would be deployed to guard polling stations.
Despite his authoritarian rule, Alberto Fujimori liberalized the economy and oversaw an economic boom. Growth has slowed in recent years under outgoing President Ollanta Humala.
Kuczynski has vowed to create jobs by boosting business and growth. Mendoza has promised to strengthen state control over the country's energy reserves.
Luis Benavente, head of the polling firm Vox Populi, said voters are "fed up not so much with the economy as with politics, because of corruption."
"We have come to a debacle, such deep chaos that the country has to react," he told AFP.
MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine soldiers battled a group of about 120 Muslim rebels linked to Islamic State in a ten-hour assault on a southern island that killed 23 people, an army spokesman said on Sunday. Major Filemon Tan said the military attacked a stronghold of Abu Sayyaf rebels on the island of Basilan led by Isnilon Hapilon, an insurgent for whom the U.S. State Department has offered a bounty of up to $5 million. "I can confirm 18 soldiers were killed and 53 were wounded," Tan said, adding that five militants, including a Moroccan, Mohammad Khattab, and Ubaida, a son of Hapilon, were killed in Saturday's incident, which wounded 20 rebels. There was no immediate statement from the small but violent Abu Sayyaf group, which is known for extortion, kidnappings, beheadings and bombings, and is one of the brutal Muslim rebel factions in the south of the largely Christian Philippines. The group has posted videos on social media sites pledging allegiance to Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, which have attracted foreign fighters from Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa to the troubled Philippine south. The army has stepped up its offensive against the rebels since November, Tan said, when President Benigno Aquino ordered it to hunt down Abu Sayyaf over the kidnapping and execution of foreign nationals. On the nearby island of Jolo, the rebels on Friday released an Italian man from six months of captivity. Troops were also on alert as another Abu Sayyaf faction threatened to execute two Canadians and a Norwegian tourists after a ransom deadline expired. In March 2014, the government signed a peace deal with the largest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, promising to grant autonomy in the south and ending a 45-year conflict that killed 120,000 people and displaced 2 million. (Reporting by Manuel Mogato Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
(Reuters) - Several employees of a Burger King fast-food outlet in Minnesota were persuaded by a prank caller posing as a fire official to smash the restaurant's windows, convinced that rising gas pressure was threatening to cause an explosion, police said Saturday.
Police in the Minneapolis suburb of Coon Rapids were dispatched to the scene Friday night after someone at a gasoline station next door called emergency services to report what appeared to be an act of vandalism in progress, police Captain Tom Hawley said.
The restaurant manager told arriving officers she had just received a phone call from a man identifying himself as a fire department official who seemed to have a working knowledge of commercial fire safety systems, which he asked her to check, according to Hawley.
In the course of their conversation, she recounted, the caller spoke as if he were remotely monitoring the situation inside the restaurant, and said he could tell that "gas pressure inside the building was rising."
As he gave her "updates," the caller insisted the gas buildup was reaching excessive levels, and finally warned that the restaurant was in danger of exploding unless the exterior windows were immediately broken to relieve pressure, Hawley said.
After quickly ushering out the handful of customers who were present at the time, the manager and three other employees ran out to their cars, grabbed tire irons and other objects and began smashing all the glass ringing the building.
By the time authorities arrived, the employees had shattered virtually all the ground-floor windows, causing several thousand dollars in damage, Hawley said. One worker suffered minor cuts and was treated on the scene by medics.
Firefighters called to the restaurant checked the building but found no traces of leaking gas, and the incident was confirmed to have been a hoax, according to Hawley.
He said investigators were trying to trace the origin of the prank, and were comparing notes with police in other cities around the country where similar phony calls have been reported at fast-food chains in recent days, including outlets in California and Oklahoma.
On Saturday, the smashed windows of the Burger King in Coon Rapids were still boarded up, but the restaurant was open for business, according to Hawley.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Bill Rigby)
By Serajul Quadir DHAKA (Reuters) - Protesters opposing the construction of a Chinese-backed, coal-fired power plant in Bangladesh agreed on Sunday to halt their activities for 15 days, defusing tensions after four demonstrators were killed last week. Villagers for and against the $2.4 billion power plant in the coastal district of Chittagong clashed last week before riot police fired their weapons after coming under attack. Four protestors died in the violence. S Alam Group, a Bangladeshi conglomerate which signed a deal on April 4 with China's SEPCOIII Electric Power Construction Corp to build the 1,320 megawatt plant, suspended work because of safety concerns, a company official said last week. Liakot Ali, the leader of the demonstrators, said they had made a number of demands to the authorities. He said a leader of Bangladesh's ruling Awami League had asked for two weeks to settle the issues. "We have demanded the release of all 17 people who have been arrested, the withdrawal of cases against villagers who demonstrated against this plant ... and the treatment of those injured during the demonstration," he said. Abdullah Kabir Liton, a senior Awami League official in Chittagong district said he had met with local people to try to convince them to stop their movement. "We need a few days to breathe," Liton told Reuters. The plant, located 265 km (165 miles) southeast of the capital Dhaka, is a major source of foreign investment into Bangladesh, and one of a series of plans Beijing is pushing to cultivate closer ties with Dhaka. The protesters say villagers around the plant will lose their homes, it will disturb the graveyards of relatives and cause environmental damage. "They started works without the approval from the ministry of environment," Liakot said. Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, an adviser to the prime minister responsible for power and energy told Reuters the project would use modern technology and would not harmful for environment. (Reporting by Serajul Quadir; additional reporting by Nazimuddin Shyamol from Chittagong; Editing by Ros Russell)
Washington (AFP) - Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders called Sunday for a more balanced US Mideast policy, describing Israel's actions in the 2014 Gaza war as "disproportionate."
Sanders, who if elected would be the first Jewish US president, was asked on CNN to explain his stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- which is far more nuanced than is typical in US politics where support for the Jewish State is historically strong.
"Of course we are going to support Israel," the Vermont senator said. "But you cannot ignore the needs of the Palestinian people in Gaza right now."
"Whether you're Jewish or not Jewish, I would hope that every person in this country wants to see the misery of never-ending war and conflict ended in the Middle East," he said.
Earlier this month, Sanders criticized Israel's role during the 2014 Gaza war in a widely read interview with the New York Daily News, saying he believed more than 10,000 innocent people died in the conflict.
Though he admitted to not being sure about the number during the interview and accepted a correction that the figure was actually just over 2,100 people, his statement came under fire from Jewish groups.
Asked about the reaction by CNN, he stood by his criticism of Israel.
"Was Israel's response disproportion disproportionate? I think it was."
"Israel has 100 percent -- and no one will fight for that principle more strongly than I will -- has the right to live in freedom, independently, and in security, without having to be subjected to terrorist attacks," said Sanders, a secular Jew who spent time on an Israeli kibbutz.
"But I think that we will not succeed to ever bring peace into that region unless we also treat the Palestinians with dignity and respect."
Israel launched the seven-week conflict in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in response to the group's firing of rockets into southern Israel.
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More than 70 percent of the 2,130 Palestinians killed in the conflict -- which destroyed infrastructure and residential buildings -- were civilians, the United Nations estimates. Israel puts the number at around 50 percent.
"Their community has been decimated," Sanders said. "You can't ignore that fact."
"And you can't just be only concerned about Israel's needs." he added. "You have to be concerned about the needs of all other people in the region."
By Amanda Becker WASHINGTON - Bernie Sanders won the U.S. presidential Democratic nominating contest in Wyoming on Saturday, besting rival Hillary Clinton and adding to a string of recent victories as the two candidates gear up for a crucial matchup in New York. Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, has won seven out of the last eight state-level Democratic nominating contests, trying to chip away at Clinton's big lead in the number of delegates needed to secure the party's nomination. Wyoming's 14 Democratic delegates - fewer than any other state - are awarded proportionally based on support from individuals participating in the nominating contest. Early estimates showed that while Sanders won the contest, both he and Clinton would likely receive seven delegates each in the close race, maintaining Clinton's lead overall. Going into Wyoming, Clinton had more than half of the 2,383 delegates needed to win the nomination. Sanders trailed her by 250 pledged delegates, those awarded based on the results of the state nominating contests. Clinton's lead widens when superdelegates, Democratic leaders who can decide whom to support at the party's July convention, are included in the tallies. Clinton and Sanders both spent Saturday campaigning in New York, which holds its contest on April 19 and where a total of 291 delegates are up for grabs, more than 10 percent of the tally needed to win the party's nomination. Sanders' wife, Jane Sanders, went onstage where he was speaking at a community college in Queens, a borough of New York City, to alert him to Saturday's victory. "News bulletin - we just won Wyoming!" Sanders said to cheers. Speaking to reporters after the event, Sanders said he believed he had enough momentum to secure the nomination. "We are closing very fast," Sanders said. Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state, campaigned in the nearby borough of Brooklyn, where her campaign is based. Clinton represented New York as a U.S. senator and considers the state her home turf. Recent polls have shown Clinton more than 10 points ahead in the state. Tension between the two candidates flared earlier this week in a party race that has typically focused on policies and not personal attacks. The candidates dialed back their criticism of one another on Friday. In Wyoming's Republican contest last month, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas beat New York billionaire Donald Trump, the party's front-runner. Cruz is trying to block Trump from receiving enough delegates to win the nomination outright, which would lead to a contested convention in July. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that a third of Trump's Republican supporters could consider abandoning the party's candidate if Trump is denied the nomination at a contested convention. (Reporting by Amanda Becker; Editing by Leslie Adler, Matthew Lewis and Bill Rigby)
PARIS (Reuters) - French tax police searched Societe Generale's headquarters this week as part of an investigation into offshore accounts revealed by the Panama Papers, the bank said on Sunday.
The searches on April 5 were a "normal development in the context of such an investigation", a spokesman for the bank said, declining to comment further.
According to the Journal du Dimanche newspaper, the searches were ordered to try to identify holders of offshore companies set up by the bank via Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.
A leak of millions of files from the firm has cast a global spotlight on the creation of more than 200,000 companies in offshore tax havens, implicating scores of politicians and business figures.
Societe Generale was identified by Le Monde earlier this week as the fourth most prolific creators of offshore shell companies via Mossack Fonseca, with 979 to its name.
Following Le Monde's initial report -- part of an international investigation by more than 100 news organizations -- Societe Generale accused the daily of using "inconsistent information which gives rise to outrageous misconceptions".
It added: "As of today, the number of active structures created via the firm Mossack Fonseca for clients amounts to a few dozen."
French Finance Mininster Michel Sapin said on Wednesday he had demanded a full enquiry into the disclosures and questioned the bank's Chief Executive Frederic Oudea.
Sapin also vowed to pay "particular attention" to decisions taken by Societe Generale since 2012, when it had pledged not to open any more offshore structures.
The bank's board reiterated its support for management on Friday and said Societe Generale was "especially vigilant" over the application of rules and safeguards against money laundering and tax evasion.
(Reporting by Laurence Frost; Editing by Keith Weir)
By Stella Mapenzauswa JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's ruling African National Congress has lost some supporters' confidence and could totally lose them if it does not deal with discontent with President Jacob Zuma, an ANC official said on Sunday. The ANC has been in damage control mode since the country's highest court ruled that Zuma failed to uphold the constitution by ignoring an order to repay some of the $16 million in state funds spent renovating his home. The party, which came to power after toppling white apartheid rule in 1994, crushed an opposition bid to impeach Zuma last week but has faced rising calls, including from some of its veteran members, to remove him. "It is not the Constitutional Court judgment that is the issue. The issue is the trust deficit that has developed, with people beginning to trust us less and less and less and less," ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said on Sunday. Speaking at the anniversary of the 1993 killing of anti-apartheid activist Chris Hani, Mantashe defended the ANC's rejection of the impeachment drive against Zuma, saying to do otherwise would have served the opposition's agenda. "But it doesn't absolve us from looking into our own behavior. There must be change in our behavior as a movement," he added. "If we don't change our behavior, we become arrogant in dealing with our problems. We are going to pay the price." Mantashe spoke as residents in poor townships vowed to boycott August local government elections out of anger that the ANC has done little to improve their lives, dashing the hopes that accompanied Nelson Mandela's inauguration as South Africa's first black president two decades ago. Zuma's own presidency has been riddled with controversy. Most recently, his close ties with the wealthy Gupta family have come under scrutiny after the deputy finance minister said the Indian-born family had influenced the sudden firing of his former boss in December. On Friday, Zuma's son Duduzane said he would sell his investments in a mining firm owned by the Guptas amid speculation the family is wielding undue political influence. The City Press newspaper reported on Sunday that some Gupta family members had left South Africa for Dubai following their resignation from positions at some local companies after major banks dropped the firms as clients. Representatives of the family's business interests declined to comment on the story. "The Gupta family has no further comment at this time, and will not be detailing the individual movements of family members," a short statement said in response to Reuters questions. "The onus is now on the business establishment and the banks to do the right thing." (Editing by Tom Heneghan)
Miami (AFP) - Super Bowl-winning former New Orleans Saints defensive end Will Smith was shot dead in an apparent road rage incident, law enforcement sources in Lousiana said Sunday.
Smith, 34, was gunned down late on Saturday night after the Mercedes he was driving with his wife was rear-ended by a Hummer H2, police said.
The driver of the vehicle which shunted Smith's car opened fire with a handgun after an argument, police said.
Smith's wife, also 34, suffered injuries to her leg after being struck by two shots. Smith was pronounced dead at the scene.
The alleged gunman, 28-year-old Cardell Hayes, has been charged with murder.
"A senseless and tragic loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with Will Smith - his wife Racquel - his children William, Wynter and Lisa," a Saints spokesman said in a statement on Twitter on Sunday.
Smith's family also released a statement, requesting privacy as they "grieve the loss of a devoted husband, father and friend."
Smith, the number 18 overall pick in the 2004 draft, spent nine seasons with the Saints and was selected for the Pro Bowl in 2006.
He accumulated a career-best 13 sacks in 2009 during the Saints memorable march to the Super Bowl.
BRASILIA (Reuters) - A smaller majority of Brazilians favor the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff compared to last month, while more than half want her immediate successor to be impeached too, according to a survey released on Saturday by polling firm Datafolha. The poll also showed growing support for former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in a potential 2018 presidential bid, another boost for the ruling Workers Party as it fights opposition leaders' efforts to impeach Rousseff. The survey was the first to gauge support for a possible impeachment of Vice President Michel Temer, who will become Brazil's president if Rousseff is suspended in coming weeks to face impeachment hearings. Many analysts have questioned his capacity to muster a stable coalition with little popular support and many leaders of his PMDB party under investigation for alleged corruption. According to Datafolha, 61 percent of Brazilians want Rousseff to be impeached by Congress, compared to 68 percent in March. Fifty-eight percent want Temer to have the same fate. If both are impeached and thrown out of office, 79 percent of Brazilians favor early elections, in which Lula would likely be a strong candidate. Voting intentions for Lula rose to between 21 and 22 percent, depending on the election scenarios, Datafolha said. In all cases, he was competitive with environmental activist Marina Silva and outperformed leaders from the main opposition party, the PSDB. Temer has between 1 and 2 percent of voting intentions. The survey suggested a sharp division between Lula's supporters and opponents. Fifty-three percent of respondents said they would not vote on Lula under any circumstances. However, 40 percent rated him as Brazil's best president ever, well above the second in the list, his predecessor Fernando Henrique Cardoso, with 14 percent of mentions in the poll. The lower house of Brazil's Congress is expected to vote April 17 on whether to impeach Rousseff as she faces charges that she manipulated budget accounts in 2014 to boost her reelection prospects. If two-thirds of deputies vote for impeachment, the measure would move to the Senate. If half the Senate votes for impeachment, Rousseff would be temporarily suspended from office pending a full trial in the Senate. Datafolha surveyed 2,779 people on April 7 and 8. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points. (Reporting by Silvio Cascione; Editing by Mary Milliken)
By Tom Perry and Vladimir Soldatkin BEIRUT/MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian air force and Syrian military are preparing a joint operation to take Aleppo from rebels, the Syrian prime minister was quoted saying on Sunday, and an opposition official said a ceasefire was on the verge of collapse. With a U.N. envoy due in Damascus in a bid to advance struggling diplomatic efforts, the "cessation of hostilities agreement" brokered by Russia and the United States came under new strain as government and rebel forces fought near Aleppo. The ceasefire came into effect in February with the aim of paving the way for a resumption of talks to end the five-year-long war. But it has been widely violated, with each side blaming the other for breaches. The fighting south of Aleppo marks the most significant challenge yet to the deal. Diplomacy has meanwhile made little progress with no compromise over the future of President Bashar al-Assad, his position strengthened by Iranian and Russian military support. A top Iranian official, in comments to Iran TV, rejected what he described as a U.S. request for Tehran's help to make Assad leave power, saying he should serve out his term and be allowed to run in a presidential election "as any Syrian". Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halaki told a delegation of visiting Russian lawmakers of preparations to "liberate" Aleppo, Syria's biggest city and commercial hub before the conflict that erupted in 2011. Aleppo is divided into areas controlled separately by the government and opposition. "We, together with our Russian partners, are preparing for an operation to liberate Aleppo and to block all illegal armed groups which have not joined or have broken the ceasefire deal," he was quoted as saying by TASS news agency. Dmitry Sablin, a member of Russia's upper house of parliament and a member of the delegation, told RIA news agency "Russian aviation will help the Syrian army's ground offensive operation". The deployment of the Russian air force to Syria last year helped tip the war Assad's way as it bombed rebels supported by his enemies including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States. President Vladimir Putin last month withdrew some of the Russian forces, but maintained an air base in Latakia, and kept up strikes on the Islamic State group. Neither the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front or Islamic State are included in the partial ceasefire. Rebels have reported the resumption of Russian air strikes south of Aleppo, an important theater where Iranian forces and Lebanon's Hezbollah are fighting in support of the army and the Nusra Front is deployed in close proximity to rebels. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a total of 35 combatants had been killed on both sides in a 24 hour period in the area, where fighting has been raging for some 10 days. Graphic on areas of control http://tmsnrt.rs/1oNV0hX "ABOUT TO COLLAPSE" A member of the main opposition council said the last 10 days had "witnessed a serious deterioration, to the point where the ceasefire is about to collapse". Bassma Kodmani of the High Negotiations Committee also told Journal du Dimanche that a U.S.-Russian ceasefire monitoring mission was "powerless". The war has killed more than 250,000 people, created the world's worst refugee crisis, and allowed for the rise of Islamic State. Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said "in Aleppo there is a real collapse of the truce". The army says groups that had agreed to the cessation of hostilities had taken part in Nusra Front attacks on government-held positions south of Aleppo. Free Syrian Army groups meanwhile blame the fighting on government violations. "The air strikes are now roughly back to what they were," said Mohamed Rasheed, head of the media office with the Jaysh al-Nasr rebel group. A Syrian military source said: "The battles are raging because ... armed groups that were part of the (truce) joined Nusra in the attack." The Observatory also reported fighting on Sunday between government and rebel forces near the opposition-held town of Douma outside Damascus, and said government helicopters had dropped barrel bombs on rebel-held areas north of Homs. Barrel bombs are oil drums filled with explosives. While the government denies dropping them, their use has been widely recorded, including by a U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria. IRAN REJECTS U.S. "PRECONDITION" U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura is due to arrive in Damascus on Sunday evening, and is expected to meet Syrian officials on Monday. He said last week he would go to Damascus and Tehran to sound out their position on a political transition before beginning a new round of peace talks on Wednesday. De Mistura has said the next round of talks needs to "be quite concrete in the direction of a political process leading to a real beginning of a political transition". Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's top adviser on international affairs, said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had asked "Iran to help so that Bashar Assad leaves. "We should ask them: "What does this have to do with you? Shouldn't the Syrian people decide?'" "From Iran's point of view Bashar Assad and his government should remain as a legal government and legal president until the end of his term. And Bashar Assad shall be able to take part in a presidential election as any Syrian citizen. And their precondition that Bashar Assad should go is a red line for us." In a sign of Assad's confidence, the Syrian government plans to hold parliamentary elections on Wednesday. Salim al-Muslat, opposition spokesman, said the vote was illegitimate. "I don't know how they can really announce an election in Syria. In Idlib or in Aleppo or in Deir al-Zor or in Homs, can people go there and vote?" he said. (Reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut, Laurence Frost in Paris, Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow, and Dubai newsroom; writing by Tom Perry, editing by Philippa Fletcher)
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's top security agency said on Monday China's establishment of diplomatic ties with one of the island's former African allies was meant to put pressure on President-elect Tsai Ing-wen to "fall in line" before her inauguration on May 20. China resumed ties with the small west African state of Gambia last week, ending an unofficial diplomatic truce between China and Taiwan following landslide wins in presidential and parliamentary elections by Tsai and her pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party. Gambia was one of only a few African countries, along with Burkina Faso, Swaziland and Sao Tome and Principe, to recognize Taiwan, which China regards as a wayward province to be recovered by force if necessary. Taiwan has only 22 allies in the world, including the Vatican City. China and Taiwan have for years tried to poach each other's allies, often dangling generous aid packages in front of leaders of developing nations. On Monday, Taiwan's normally secretive National Security Bureau said in a report presented to parliament the island's ties with its few remaining diplomatic allies were at risk of being undermined by financial aid packages from China. "The warning to our new government was thick with meaning," the bureau said in its report. "It had the intention of pressuring President-elect Tsai Ing-wen to respond in her May 20 inaugural speech in a way that falls in line with China's expectations," the bureau said. Tsai said in an interview carried by one of Taiwan's biggest dailies, the China Times, on Monday that both sides should show goodwill in the period before she is sworn in. "Through the expression of goodwill, the hope is to build a foundation of trust," Tsai said. She said through a spokesman last week she hoped the Gambia case was not a "targeted move" by China. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the resumption of diplomatic ties with Gambia was "not aimed at any person". Hua also warned the United States not to "put in a good word" for Taiwan, after U.S. President Barack Obama signed a bill supporting Taiwan's participation in Interpol. Hua said Interpol was a body only sovereign nations could join. China has repeatedly warned Tsai against any moves toward independence, while Tsai has stuck to her stance of maintaining the status quo without offering a clear policy. Gambia broke its ties with Taiwan in 2013, but did not immediately establish ties with China. (Reporting by J.R. Wu; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Paul Tait and Nick Macfie)
Most Tesla owners love their cars but that doesn't mean everything is perfect. In a popular Quora thread, some Tesla Model S owners recently listed the biggest gripes that they had about their cars and they include things such as complaints about the cars' fit, finish and quality. In short, it sounds like Tesla has some work to do still if it wants to be considered a top-notch car manufacturer.
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Here, for example, is an excerpt from a lengthy complaint from Christian Bull, who says that while Tesla owners love their cars now, Tesla could be in real trouble once other car manufacturers start offering real competition in the electric car market:
Sub par fit, finish and quality feel. American cars have a terrible reputation for fit and finish. Tesla lives up to this reputation. I also get the impression that Tesla initially had to source parts from second rate suppliers, and things feel a bit rickety and primitive. Things just don't feel very solid. If Tesla intends to remain competitive in the premium/luxury market, they need to improve. I think they have, though. A 2015 Model S is a lot nicer than an early 2014, but they still have a ways to go. [...] A colleague of mine, who also has a Model S has also experienced many of the same problems. Still we agree, as do most Model S owners, that there's no alternative. Nobody wants to go back to driving an ICE car.
Kirsten Oulton, meanwhile, cites the slow growth of the supercharger network in Canada and service center availability. And like Bull, she says the fit and finish leave a lot to be desired compared to other luxury cars on the market:
The leather, stitching and other materials on the Model S are not as good as a Maybach! Some people expect Tesla's to be luxury vehicles, not understanding that they are actually performance vehicles. In addition, as a young car company, Teslas sometimes demonstrate utterly inexplicable design fails such as poorly-placed cupholders and a lack of lights in the visor mirrors. We expect these things to be corrected over time as the design team spends a bit less time focussing on the mind-blowing core technology and a bit more time listening to customer feedback, but they aren't perfect today.
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Tesla owner Peter Marreck writes that he now feels that he has to stick with Tesla simply because the experience of owning an electric car is so much better than any other car he could buy right now. This is the kind of gripe that Tesla should be happy to see:
I have yet to meet or hear of a Tesla owner that wants to go back to an ICE vehicle (and no OTA software updates, no touchscreen, no self-driving, and no electric motor, much less no instant torque). It would be like an iPhone owner wanting to go back to a Nokia. There is probably some self-selection going on there (in that people who buy Teslas are likely already "green-worldview-friendly"), but I really think that most anyone who drives one of these things for a little while will find it grows on them rather quickly (literally and figuratively).
Some other common complaints in the thread include lack of integration with CarPlay and Android, buggy door handles and poorly placed cup holders. Be sure to check out the full list of complaints at this link.
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This article was originally published on BGR.com
By Catherine Ngai and Ethan Lou
(Reuters) - TransCanada Corp on Sunday said it had restarted the 590,000- barrel-per-day Keystone crude pipeline at reduced pressure after it received American authorization to do so.
The Canadian energy company said the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration approved the return to service plan for a controlled start Saturday evening.
The pipeline, which delivers light and heavy crude from Hardisty, Alberta, to Cushing, Oklahoma, and Illinois, was shut on April 2 after a potential leak was discovered in South Dakota.
"As part of the return-to-service plan approved by PHMSA, TransCanada is operating the pipeline at reduced pressure," the company said in a statement.
In an e-mailed statement to media on Friday, the company said it identified the leak near its Freeman pump station in Hutchinson County, South Dakota.
The company also said it will conduct aerial patrols and visual inspections during the restart.
(Reporting by Ethan Lou in Toronto; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Alan Crosby)
By Paul Tait KABUL (Reuters) - An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.6 struck South Asia on Sunday, shaking buildings in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, witnesses and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said, and injuring several people in at least one Pakistani city. The USGS said the quake was centered about 40 km (25 miles) west of Ashkasham in remote northeastern Afghanistan, close to the border with Tajikistan and just across a narrow finger of land from Pakistan's northwestern Chitral province. It was measured at a depth of 210 km (130 miles). Residents left their homes in Kabul and Islamabad when the quake struck, with buildings swaying for more than a minute in both capitals. Similar reports were received from across northern and central Pakistan. In Pakistan's northwestern frontier city of Peshawar, Khalid Khan, emergency director at the city's main Lady Reading Hospital, said three people were treated for "multiple injuries". Media pictures showed two children who appeared to have been injured in the quake. People in Lahore in Pakistan's east, 630 km (390 miles) from the epicenter, also reported they had felt the tremors. A Reuters witness in Chitral said the tremor was strong but there was no major damage visible. A 7.5-magnitude quake struck the area on Oct. 26 last year, killing more than 300 people and destroying thousands of homes. In Kabul, Omar Mohammadi, a spokesman for the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority, said officials were collecting information but no reports of casualties or damage had been received so far. Tremors were also felt in the Indian capital and in Kashmir, witnesses said, with some people working in high-rise buildings in the Indian capital rushing into the streets. The Delhi underground system was also halted briefly, commuters told the NDTV channel. The Hindu Kush area bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan is a seismically active area, with quakes often felt across the region. Just over a decade ago, a 7.6-magnitude quake in another part of northern Pakistan killed about 75,000 people. (Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi in KABUL, Asad Hashim, Kay Johnson and Jibran Ahmed in ISLAMABAD, Gul Hammad Farooqi in CHITRAL, and Sanjeev Miglani in NEW DELHI, Editing by Ros Russell)
Washington (AFP) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has paid his first visit to the September 11 Memorial Museum, using the opportunity to roundly criticize rival conservative Ted Cruz just days before a key New York primary election.
Trump and his wife Melania toured the museum Saturday with president and CEO Joe Daniels, as well as New York Police Department and Port Authority Police Department officials, according to his campaign.
The couple "were incredibly impressed with the museum, a monument representative of all of the wonderful people who tragically lost their lives and the families who have suffered so greatly," a campaign statement read.
Asked why he made a reported $100,000 donation to the museum, Trump later said "I just felt like doing it," adding he was also motivated by Cruz's dismissive talk of "New York values."
Texas Senator Cruz has used the term to suggest the billionaire New York real estate magnate was a liberal.
Trump told the Fox News show "Justice with Judge Jeanine" he was driven to make the large donation "because I heard him disparaging New York. And I just thought it would be the thing to do."
Cruz, who is trailing Trump in polls for the New York primary, "has hatred for New York," Trump said.
"And you could see it the way he expressed, and it was not the fact that he talked about New York values, it was the way he said it. The tone and the expression. And I just don't think that New Yorkers are going to fall for it."
Istanbul (AFP) - Turkish police have smashed a cell of Kurdish militants in a usually tranquil region between Istanbul and Ankara who had hoarded explosives, guns and suicide vests, the Dogan news agency reported Sunday.
Police in the Bolu province east of Istanbul, said they had detained seven members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as part of an investigation into plans for a suicide attack.
The arrests come three days after Bolu police killed two suspected PKK members in an unusual raid in the province which is about half-way between Turkey's biggest city Istanbul and the capital Ankara, and far from the Kurdish-dominated southeast.
Police uncovered two pistols, four homemade explosive devices, two Kalashnikovs, C4 plastic explosives and two suicide vests, the Dogan news agency reported.
The haul comes with Turkey on a knife's edge after four militant attacks that have killed 79 people this year alone in Istanbul and Ankara.
The two bombings in Ankara were claimed by a group calling itself the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), a radical splinter group of the PKK which has which has fought a decades-long insurrection against the Turkish state.
Those in Istanbul have been blamed on the Islamic State group.
Since the collapse of a two-year ceasefire with the PKK last year, Turkish government forces have been waging a blistering military campaign against the group in the southeast of the country.
Three weeks after the most recent attack in Istanbul, which left four dead and dozens injured, the United States and Israel have issued emergency travel warnings to their citizens in the past two days.
The US embassy warned of "credible threats to tourist areas, in particular to public squares and docks in Istanbul and Antalya."
Meanwhile, Israel urged its citizens to avoid Turkey or "leave as soon as possible", citing an imminent risk of an attack.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday lashed out at the west for backing Syrian Kurdish militia group the PYD in the fight against IS, which Turkey says is linked to the PKK -- which the US and EU consider a terrorist group.
"They are appendages of the same body ... If you do not see that the PYD is a terror organisation that means that you do not see the Ankara attack as a terror attack," Erdogan said during a speech in Istanbul.
"Is the fight with terrorism not supposed to be a common struggle?"
Moroni (Comoros) (AFP) - Voters were heading to the polls in the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Comoros on Sunday in a likely face-off between the current vice president and a former coup leader who ruled the country for seven years.
The second round of the presidential election comes after Vice President Mohamed Ali Soilihi -- known as Mamadou -- won the first round in February with 17.88 percent of the vote.
The two other contenders are governor of Grande Comore island Mouigni Baraka, who garnered 15.62 percent in the first round, and 1999 coup leader Colonel Azali Assoumani, who took 15.10 percent.
Voting kicked off under calm conditions just after 7:00 am (0400 GMT), with people lining up at poll stations under the eye of a discrete police presence.
Assoumani is seen as Mamadou's main rival after receiving the endorsement from the opposition Juwa party, which has no candidate in the second round.
The Juwa party split over the endorsement, and 15 high-ranking party officials resigned to rally behind Mamadou, who is viewed as the establishment choice.
Assoumani first came to power in 1999 after ousting acting president Tadjidine Ben Said Massounde in a coup.
He then won the presidential election three years later, stepping down when his term ended in 2006.
If the election goes smoothly, results are expected within three days in the race to succeed outgoing President Ikililou Dhoinine.
- Dire poverty -
A Constitutional Court ruling in March upheld the first-round results after 19 of the 25 candidates alleged fraud.
Campaigning for the second round was marked by personal attacks and allegations of corruption, with barbs traded particularly between Mamadou and Assoumani.
The first round took place only on Grand Comore island, in accordance with electoral rules that ensure the president is chosen on a rotating basis from the three main islands.
Comoros' system was established in 2001 after more than 20 coups or attempted coups, four of which were successful, in the years following independence from France in 1975.
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The three islands of Anjouan, Grand Comore and Moheli that make up the Comoros have a total population of just under 800,000 people, nearly all of whom are Sunni Muslims.
Dhoinine's completion of his five-year term in the impoverished archipelago has been seen as a sign of growing stability in the Comoros in recent years.
Though the islands, situated between Madagascar and Mozambique, suffer dire poverty, they export some vanilla, cloves and ylang-ylang perfume essence.
Comoros is the world's top producer of ylang-ylang, which is extracted from a flower -- a commodity that makes up one-tenth of the archipelago's total export revenues.
The oil is a key ingredient in Chanel N5 and is also used in many other perfumes.
By Estelle Shirbon and Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron took the unusual step on Sunday of publishing his tax records to try to end days of questions about his personal wealth raised by the mention of his late father's offshore fund in the Panama Papers. Cameron's initial reluctance to admit he had benefited from the fund caused a furor, compounding his problems when he faces a huge political fight to persuade Britons to vote to stay in the European Union in a June 23 referendum. The EU issue has split his Conservative Party, while the government has also been going through a tough patch over a senior minister's resignation, a u-turn on welfare cuts and accusations it is failing to protect Britain's steel industry. After saying on Saturday that could have handled the fallout from the Panama disclosures better, Cameron released a summary of his tax records for the past six years. But any hope that would draw a line under the row was short-lived, as the main Sunday newspapers zeroed in on a gift of 200,000 pounds ($282,500) Cameron received from his mother in 2011, suggesting it may be a way of avoiding inheritance tax. A source at Cameron's Downing Street office said the suggestion was inaccurate. Cameron is one of dozens of politicians around the world who have been hit by the leak of 11.5 million documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca that detail the creation of more than 200,000 companies in offshore tax havens. Cameron will make a statement about tax policy to parliament on Monday to try to regain the upper hand. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has accused him of misleading the public by issuing what Corbyn described as four "weasel-worded" statements in as many days before finally admitting that he had benefited from his father's fund. Some politicians campaigning for Britain to vote to stay in the EU in June's referendum are concerned that the damage to Cameron is bad for their side, as he had previously been considered the best advocate for an "In" vote. "The scandals over David Cameron's finances ... may tip the decision further towards 'Leave'," said former Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Gordon Wilson on Sunday. Nicola Sturgeon, SNP leader and first minister of Scotland's devolved government, published her latest tax return on Sunday, adding to pressure for greater transparency by politicians. 'UNSAVOURY' ATTACKS Cameron is not accused of having done anything illegal, and the fact that he is a wealthy man is nothing new. But the past week has been damaging because the drip-drip of carefully worded statements before the fuller disclosure created the impression he may have had something to hide. "He's not behaved improperly in any way and he's gone further than any prime minister previously in publishing these tax returns," Conservative minister Dominic Raab told Sky News television, accusing Cameron's Labour critics of "unsavory" personal attacks and comparing them to "hyenas". Cameron announced a new taskforce on tax evasion would be led by the tax authority, HMRC, and the National Crime Agency. The Guardian newspaper reported later that HMRC boss Edward Troup's former employer, London-based law firm Simmons and Simmons, had counted Cameron's father's fund among its clients. The Guardian made no suggestion of wrongdoing by Troup or Simmons and Simmons. HMRC said Troup had never had any dealings with Mossack Fonseca or advised any of its clients named so far. It added that any HMRC officers with a potential conflict of interest would exclude themselves from a relevant investigation. Bookmakers William Hill said they had cut their odds on Cameron resigning as prime minister this year to 2/1, compared with 16/1 when he won the last general election last May. Cameron said on Thursday his father's investment trust was not set up to avoid tax but to invest in dollar-denominated shares. He said he had paid all taxes due on his own investment, which was worth about 30,000 pounds when he sold it in 2010. But Cameron stands accused of hypocrisy after portraying his government as being in the forefront of global efforts to crack down on offshore tax havens. A comment he made in 2012 about a famous comedian's legal tax avoidance scheme being "morally wrong" has been widely quoted by media. The documents disclosed by Downing Street on Sunday, from RNS Chartered Accountants, show Cameron paid tax of 75,898 pounds on income of 200,307 pounds in the 2014-2015 financial year, the most recent one included. ($1 = 0.7080 pounds) (Additional reporting by Elisabeth O'Leary in Edinburgh; Editing by Ros Russell and Peter Cooney)
London (AFP) - British Prime Minister David Cameron was on Sunday to announce a new taskforce to deal with the so-called Panama Papers as pressure mounted over the handling of his own offshore finances.
The force will be led by the HMRC tax authority and the National Crime Agency, but is unlikely to spare Cameron from more scrutiny over his admission Thursday that he bought and then sold shares in his late father's Bahamas-based offshore fund.
Cameron at first refused to comment on his father's fund, details of which emerged in the leak of documents from Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca, and admitted Saturday he had mishandled the controversy.
The prime minister was to insist Sunday that Britain has been at the "forefront of international action to tackle aggressive tax avoidance and evasion," according to a statement from the finance department, but the latest revelations appear to have undermined his claims to be leading the efforts.
A Yougov poll released Thursday showed that Cameron was the second least trusted British politician on tax affairs, coming behind only his finance minister George Osborne.
The taskforce will investigate the leaked files to identify clients of the Panama firm suspected of money laundering and tax evasion, and will have a A10-million ($14-million, 12-million-euro) budget.
"There is clearly further to go and this taskforce will bring together the best of British expertise to deal with any wrongdoing relating to the Panama Papers," said Cameron.
The taskforce will report its findings "later this year", according to the statement.
Cameron said he would publish his tax returns and shouldered the blame for the row.
He earlier admitted he and his wife had held a stake in his father's Blairmore Holdings scheme. They bought the stake for A12,497 in 1997 and sold it for A31,500, four months before he became prime minister in 2010.
He is believed to have paid tax on the dividends paid out by the trust, but not on the profits when sold.
"It has not been a great week. I know that I should have handled this better, I could have handled this better," he told his Conservative Party's spring forum in London on Saturday.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside Downing Street Saturday to call for his resignation.
Madrid (AFP) - Alvaro Negredo netted a stoppage-time winner for Valencia to ease their La Liga relegation fears by snapping a four-game losing streak with a 2-1 victory over Sevilla on Sunday.
Dani Parejo's free-kick had given Pako Ayestaran's men a deserved half-time lead in his first home game in charge since replacing the sacked Gary Neville.
The poor defending that underminded Neville's reign cost the hosts once more five minutes from time, though, when Sevilla substitute Kevin Gameiro swept home Michael Krohn-Dehli's pass to equalise.
However, Negredo pounced on a loose ball inside the area in stoppage time to the relief of 50,000 fans at the Mestalla, to move Valencia up to 13th and nine points clear of the relegation zone with six games remaining.
Sevilla are now 12 points adrift of Villarreal in fourth after the Yellow Submarine strengthened their hold on the final Champions League spot with a comfortable 2-0 win over relegation-threatened Getafe.
Denis Suarez got Villarreal off to a perfect start with the opener on 15 minutes before the on-form Cedric Bakambu sealed the points with his 20th goal of the season.
Earlier, Celta Vigo remained eight points off Villarreal in fifth as Nolito's second-half strike earned a hard-fought 1-0 win at Sporting Gijon.
Athletic Bilbao moved three points clear of Sevilla in sixth thanks to Inaki Williams's solitary goal in a 1-0 win over Rayo Vallecano.
By James Oliphant and Alana Wise WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will speak at an event in the Vatican next week, likely broadening his appeal to Catholic voters ahead of crucial nominating contests in a series of Northeastern states. Like Pope Francis, Sanders has made economic inequality and the plight of the working class a central tenet of his message. Sanders' April 15 visit to Vatican City, where he will give an economic address at a conference, will come just days before Democrats in New York vote in their state primary. The trip may help the U.S. senator amplify the anti-corporate line of attack he has employed against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton as he tries to keep his insurgent campaign for the Nov. 8 presidential election alive. Sanders, who would be the first Jewish U.S. president if elected, described himself on MSNBC as a "big, big fan of the pope," who leads the world's 1.2 billion Catholics. Speaking to reporters in New York later, Sanders said he hoped to meet with Francis. "The pope's schedule is determined by the Vatican but I would certainly be enthusiastic about that," said Sanders, 74, the Brooklyn-born son of Polish-Jewish immigrants. A meeting with the Argentine pontiff could provide an electoral boost to Sanders, who has trailed former Secretary of State Clinton in support among America's Catholic Democrats. "Pope Francis has criticized the 'make money at all cost' capitalist mentality and called for more compassion for the poor," said Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist in Washington. "Thats exactly the way, Bernie Sanders wants to define his campaign against Clinton." Clinton has scored victories over Sanders in Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Texas, all of which are more than one-quarter Catholic. A survey by the Pew Research Center earlier this year found that while almost 70 percent of Catholic Democrats thought Clinton would make a good president, just 46 percent thought Sanders would be one. This is a great play for Sanders because it ties directly his messaging related to income equality, it puts him on the world stage as a leader, and it does it with an institution and leader important to a key voting bloc in a state where every vote is going to count heading into the primary, said Virginia-based Democratic strategist Bud Jackson. Sanders was invited to speak at the Vatican event by the Vatican, a senior papal official said, denying a report that Sanders had invited himself. "I deny that. It was not that way," Monsignor Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo told Reuters. Sorondo, a close aide to Pope Francis, is chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, which is hosting the event. SANDERS, BILL CLINTON BACK OFF Late April brings nominating contests in Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, all states with large populations of Catholic voters. Sanders' victory earlier this week over Clinton in the Wisconsin primary marked his sixth win in the past seven contests, sparking renewed talk of Clinton's political vulnerability despite her substantial delegate lead. Sanders this week said Clinton, who is also a former first lady and former U.S. senator, was not qualified to be president. After heavy criticism from Clinton's campaign and other Democrats, he backed off Friday morning in an interview on NBC's "Today." "On her worst day, she would be an infinitely better president than either of the Republican candidates," he said, referring to New York developer Donald Trump and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Clinton has been under fire from progressives since her campaign began. On Thursday, her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had a testy exchange at a campaign rally in Philadelphia with protestors from the Black Lives Matter movement over the effects of an anti-crime bill passed during his presidency. At one point, Bill Clinton accused the movement of "defending the people who kill the lives you say matter." On Friday, he seemed regretful. I rather vigorously defended my wife, as I am wont to do, and I realized, finally, I was talking past her (the protestor) the same way she was talking past me, Clinton said at an event in Erie, Pennsylvania. We have got to stop that in this country. Weve got to listen to each other again. In the Republican race, Trump extended his lead nationally over Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll. The national online poll showed that 42 percent of Republicans support Trump, compared with 32 percent for Cruz and 20 percent for Kasich. (Additional reporting by Megan Cassella and Doina Chiacu in Washington and Philip Pullella in Vatican City; Editing by Bill Trott and Alistair Bell)
N'DJAMENA (Reuters) - Voting began on Sunday in a presidential election in Chad in which incumbent Idriss Deby is favourite to win a fifth term and extend a tenure that began in 1990. Deby's main electoral argument is that only his government can take the necessary measures to guarantee stability in a region where Islamist militant group Boko Haram and al Qaeda affiliates have staged a series of attacks. Chad has one of the region's most capable militaries and has played a key role in efforts backed by the West to combat Islamist militants in several countries. "We came to vote for the president to guarantee peace in our country. Around us in the neighbouring countries there are too many problems," said civil servant Fatima Zara as she lined up to vote. Deby faces 13 challengers including opposition leader Saleh Kebzabo who argues that Chad needs change, though Deby has an advantage through his effective control of state media as well as the institutions of state and local administrations. "I got up early to come and vote because we want change," said Mathieu Madjitulngar, an unemployed man queuing at a polling station in a suburb of the capital. (Reporting by Madjiasra Nako; writing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg; editing by David Clarke)
Paris (AFP) - Her parents were hairdressers in a small town in Connecticut -- so it wasn't exactly written in the stars that Lynsey Addario should become one of the world's best known war photographers.
Even after her Italian-American family got her a Nikon camera for her 13th birthday, she thought "photographers were crazy rich kids" with time on their hands.
But fate was about to deal Addario the first of many strange hands that would take her to Afghanistan before September 11 turned the world upside down, and then from one war zone to the next.
"I never set out or wanted to cover war," the 42-year-old, who has continued to cover conflicts since becoming a mother five years ago, told AFP.
In her book, "It's What I Do", Addario tries to make sense of what got her into one of the world's most dangerous professions.
Despite several scrapes with death documenting wars from Iraq to Congo, "I didn't think anyone would read the book," she said. "It felt really uncomfortable... egotistical (even). I thought, who would possibly care about my life?"
Steven Spielberg for starters. He is about to tell her story in a new film in which she will be played by Hollywood's hottest property, "Hunger Games" star Jennifer Lawrence.
- Taken hostage -
It will centre on her kidnapping in Libya in March 2011, when she was held with four other New York Times journalists by soldiers loyal to Colonel Kadhafi as large parts of the country rose up against him.
That nightmare which included beatings, death threats and Addario being molested by her captors, ended with the journalists being released after a few days.
Their driver Mohammed, who had been "frantic" with fear as they lingered amid sniper fire to photograph rebels along the road to the besieged town of Ajdabiya, was not so fortunate.
"I didn't want to be the cowardly photographer or the terrified girl who prevented the men from doing their work," Addario wrote later, questioning their actions.
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As they were taken away, Mohammed was shot by the roadside.
It was his death, and that of her friends and fellow photographers Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros who were killed in Kadhafi's hometown Misrata the following month, that pushed Addario to put pen to paper.
"After I was released I wanted to do a photo book. I was thinking about the work I had done, and going through my old work, and it was then that I found out that Tim and Chris had been killed," she said.
"I had this sort of moment of reckoning. I wanted to write... to communicate what I went through in Libya after my friends were killed. It just seemed a better way."
As she tells it, Addario -- who won a Pulitzer prize as part of a New York Times team in 2009 -- is an accidental war photographer.
It all began after she was sent to Afghanistan in 2000 to photograph life for women under the Taliban. The following year, a country which most Americans could not have found on the map, became a national obsession as the hunt began for Osama bin Laden.
"I never set out or wanted to cover war. I started it because I'd been working so much in Afghanistan on the Taliban. It was natural that I went back there.
"Then I wanted to be in Iraq so I started to cover wars regularly, but it was because the stories brought me there, not because of war itself."
- Tea with the Al-Zarqawis -
It was in Iraq where she met the sisters of the then leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, out of whose group the Islamic State grew.
"I do think it's always been a great advantage being a woman in this job," she told AFP during a visit to Paris, where her book has just been published in French.
"But because I work in the Muslim world I have access to both women and men. I can go into people's houses and interview the mothers and the sisters," she said.
"I had tea with Al-Zarqawi's sisters because I was a woman, so I was thrown in with the women!"
Despite having a five-year-old son, Lukas, to whom she dedicated her book, Addario has continued to go work in war zones.
"I want people to see how other people live and to be sort of a messenger, I want to connect the dots, to give people perspective."
For her the choice is simple.
"When I'm covering a humanitarian crisis, human rights abuse or war... you have to be out there (for it) to be seen by people from the comfort of their home."
Rome (AFP) - The World Food Programme said on Sunday it had carried out its first ever successful high-altitude airdrop, to deliver 20 tonnes of food aid to the besieged Syrian city of Deir Ezzor.
A previous attempt to drop aid to the city where 200,000 people have been living under siege by the Islamic State (IS) group since March 2014 failed in February, WFP said in a statement.
The successful airdrop was the first time WFP has managed to get aid to the city, around 120 kilometres (70 miles) southeast of the jihadist movement's de facto capital Raqa, since the start of the siege over two years ago.
The supplies -- enough beans, chickpeas and rice to feed 2,500 people for a month -- were collected for distribution in the city by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.
"More airdrops are planned for the coming days to meet food and other humanitarian needs for the besieged population," WFP said, adding that airdrops would always be a last resort used when land access was impossible.
IS has been battling to capture the airbase in Deir Ezzor, which provides the only supply route other than airdrops to the government-held sector of the city.
The February airdrop failed with some of the pallets missing the drop zone and others being damaged due to their parachutes failing to function properly.
Marib (Yemen) (AFP) - A UN-brokered ceasefire was taking hold in Yemen on Monday despite sporadic clashes, raising hopes that peace talks due next week may finally resolve the country's devastating conflict.
Forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, the Shiite Huthi rebels who drove his government out of the capital, and the Saudi-led coalition that intervened in Yemen last year all pledged to honour the truce that took effect at midnight on Sunday.
The UN special envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, called the ceasefire "a first step in Yemen's return to peace".
"This is critical, urgent and much needed. Yemen cannot afford the loss of more lives," he said.
Previous efforts to stop the fighting in Yemen -- which has killed thousands and forced more than two million people from their homes -- collapsed amid mutual recriminations.
The conflict in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula nation has ruined large parts of the country and raised Middle East tensions, with Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies backing the government and Shiite powerhouse Iran supporting the rebels.
Jihadists including from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the powerful Yemeni branch of the extremist network, have exploited the conflict to seize territory and gain influence.
But pressure had been building for the ceasefire and there are hopes it can be the cornerstone of a long-lasting peace deal that can be hammered out at talks taking place from April 18 in Kuwait.
- 'Step back from brink' -
General Mohamed Ali al-Makdashi, the chief of staff for Hadi's forces, said early Monday the ceasefire was largely holding despite some violations by rebels.
"The truce has not collapsed and we hope the rebels end their attacks and respect the ceasefire," he said, alleging breaches in several areas including the cities of Taez in the southwest and Marib east of Sanaa.
Loyalists accused Huthis of 25 violations around Taez, where one civilian was killed in rebel bombing.
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The rebels, meanwhile, said in a statement there was at least one coalition air strike in Taez province, and accused loyalists of being behind 33 truce violations north and east of Sanaa, as well as in the south.
Five soldiers were killed in clashes with rebels in Marib province and Taez, military sources said.
A committee of representatives from both sides will try to ensure the ceasefire is respected.
Coalition spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Assiri earlier described the violations as "minor".
"It is the first day and we should be patient," the top Saudi officer told AFP. "Day by day, it will be better."
An AFP photographer in Sanaa said the rebel-held capital has not been targeted by coalition warplanes since Sunday.
Prime Minister Ahmed bin Dagher also played down violations, saying that the truce "seems good", adding after meeting the UN envoy in Riyadh that "we want a durable peace".
A UN spokesman said the cessation of hostilities was "largely holding", while noting "some pockets of violence.
- Rebels commit to truce -
The Huthis, allied with troops loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, also committed to the ceasefire in a letter sent to the United Nations, according to a statement carried by the rebel-run Saba news agency.
The Huthis, a northern minority that has long complained of marginalisation, descended on the capital Sanaa from their mountainous region in September 2014, seizing the city with little resistance.
As they advanced into other areas, Hadi and other officials fled first to the main southern city of Aden and eventually to Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia and a coalition of mainly Sunni Arab allies launched air strikes in March last year against the Huthis and later sent ground troops to support pro-government forces.
The loyalists have since managed to reclaim large parts of the south, establishing a temporary capital in Aden, but have failed to dislodge the Huthis from Sanaa and other key areas.
The coalition has come under fire from rights groups, which allege its air war has caused heavy civilian casualties.
The United Nations says more than 6,300 people have been killed in Yemen in the past 12 months, around half of them civilians.
Analysts said the ceasefire is part of the most promising attempt yet to end the conflict.
"For the first time, the groups that can end major military operations, particularly the Saudis and the Huthis, appear to be more willing to do so," said April Longley Alley, a Yemen specialist at the International Crisis Group.
"Even if major combat ends, the road to peace in Yemen will be long and difficult and internal conflict is likely to continue for some time."
Rob870
Google recently put up its Boston Dynamics robotics unit up for sale, but that doesn't mean that the company is getting out of the automaton business.
A new bipedal robot from Google's Schaft robotics was shown off on Friday at the New Economic Summit conference in Tokyo, Japan on Friday.
See also: Panasonic gives us our first look at bionic factory workers
The small robot is shown walking in a number of situations that can be challenging even for humans, including a sandy beach, a rocky terrain, snow, and a steep, narrow staircase.
Google Schaft robot
At one point during the demonstration video (top of page), we even see how the robot handles random, rolling obstacles thrown under its "feet." Spoiler: It handles the surprise instability better than many humans might.
The video also shows off how the robot can handle uneven terrain while carrying heavy loads, indicating that this could be the precursor to the human labor replacement robot some have been anticipating in recent years.
Sure, we already have robots that build our cars, manage inventory in factories and even construct our homes. But this is the kind of robot that could, for example, carry a bag of groceries for a person. That kind of humanoid assistant-level worker robot replacement could have huge impacts in the future.
Schaft's robot doesn't have a name yet, but fans of Japanese manga and anime will recognize the name from the fictional Schaft Enterprises in the '80s Patlabor series devoted to a future in which police use humanoid robots to combat crime.
Google hasn't released regarding a commercial debut for the robot, but the demonstration alone is enough to send the most important message: the days of human labor based on muscle are numbered.
Gabrielle Carteris has been elected president of SAG-AFTRA by the unions national board of directors. The former star of Beverly Hills, 90210 had been serving as the unions acting president since Howards death on March 23. A longtime union activist, shed been the unions second-ranking officer executive vice president since the merger of SAG and AFTRA in 2012, which she helped orchestrate. Prior to the merger, shed been the president of AFTRAs Los Angeles Local and also served as a member of SAGs national board of directors. Carteris replaces Ken Howard, who passed away March 23 and was the first elected president of the merged SAG-AFTRA, as well as the first president of either SAG or AFTRA to die in office.
As Executive Vice President under Howard, Carteris had assumed his duties until the regularly scheduled national board meeting April 9. She has been elected to serve the balance of Howards unexpired term, which expires in 2017. Rebecca Damon was elected to replace Carteris as Executive Vice President.
I am deeply honored to be chosen by the SAG-AFTRA National Board to serve the union and its members as president, said Carteris in a statement. Ken was a great union leader, friend and mentor. He left big shoes to fill, but with the support of the national board of directors and the membership, I am committed to improving the lives of all SAG-AFTRA members.
After the merger, she was elected executive vice president at the inaugural SAG-AFTRA Convention in 2013, and was reelected last October, both times running as a member of Howards Unite For Strength slate of running mates.
Unlike the unions president and secretary-treasurer, who are elected directly by the members, all eight of the vice presidents including executive vice president are elected by delegates to the convention, a holdover from AFTRAs method of governance.
In October, she won reelection with 79% of the delegate votes, defeating challenger Patricia Richardson, who two months earlier had lost the presidential race to Howard.
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Carteris recent acting credits include guest-starring roles on Criminal Minds, Make It or Break It, The Event, Longmire, The Middle, a new Web series called Send Me, and the holiday television movie 12 Christmas Wishes. In 2011, she appeared as herself on Celebrity Ghost Stories, recounting how the spirit of her grandfather had helped her during a difficult time in her life.
Shes also been involved in numerous charitable organizations, including DARE, the Noxzema Extraordinary Teen program, MADD, Read to Grow, Best Buddies and the Skys The Limit Fund.
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Atlantic RecordsFor probably the first time ever, Imagine Dragons, The Scorpions and Limp Bizkit are all featured on the same album. All three bands have contributed songs to the soundtrack for the upcoming The Angry Birds Movie.
The soundtrack, which will be released May 6, includes Imagine Dragons' Night Visions track "On Top of the World," The Scorpions classic hit "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and Limp Bizkit's cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes," which, ironically, might be Fred Durst and company's least angry song.
The Angry Birds Movie, based on the popular mobile game, will arrive in theaters on May 20.
Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Entertainment / Music
by Staff Reporter
Sungura musician Alick Macheso is headed for Binga this coming Thursday where he is expected to perform for a charitable cause.He recently launched his long awaited Tsoka DzeRwendo album.The album made history, selling 100 000 copies on its first day of release.Macheso, who is also a humanitarian ambassador for the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society, is set to give his multitude of fans in Binga a feel of his trailblazing album and other memorable songs from his previous albums.The Binga gig is part of three, which the band will perform for charity, with the first being held in Siakobvu business centre, 210 kilometers west of Karoi town on Wednesday and Muzarabani on 21 April, all under the banner of the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society.Macheso's publicist Tich Makahamadze confirmed the gig, noting that while this was for a charitable cause it would also give their fans in the outlying areas an opportunity to meet Macheso."On Thursday Alick and Orchestra Mberikwazvo are indeed headed for Binga for this charity gig, which is being organised by the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society. As you might know Alick is also the humanitarian ambassador so this is just part of his duties."So to our multitudes of fans in Binga and surrounding areas, who have previously felt shortchanged by the band performing in major towns and cities, we are saying they should come to Binga and be rest assured that as always Alick Macheso and Orchestra Mberikwazvo will surely get their money's worth," he said.
News / Education
by Staff reporter
Government has doled out $6,4 million for school fees for war veterans' children.The money will be accessed as from Monday.This follows an undertaking President Mugabe made at his meeting with war veterans in Harare last Thursday where the former freedom fighters tabled their grievances.Permanent Secretary for Welfare Services for War Veterans, War Collaborators, Ex-Political Detainees and Ex-Restrictees Brigadier-General (Retired) Walter Tapfumaneyi said a special purpose vehicle had also been set up to run bankable projects for the veterans."We received the funding from Treasury to pay school fees for the first term of 2016. We will now be making the payments for the arrears and expect Treasury to also give us bills for the second term."We also have arrears dating back to the third term of 2013, so we are hoping that these will also be paid off".
News / Local
by Staff Reporter
Zanu PF minister on Saturday pledged to avail 900 hectares of land to construct more than 20 000 housing units for youths in Bulawayo.Addressing thousands of Zanu-PF youths during a Bulawayo youth empowerment rally held in the city yesterday, Local Government Minister and Zanu PF national political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere announced that his ministry will be rolling out the first 300 hectares this year and construction of housing units expected to commence by year end."One thing which I must assure you is that we are a party of action which is why today I am announcing that I will be giving you 300 hectares of land, which will be enough for about 20 000 residential stands. I promise you that this land will be serviced by end of this year. This will be a first in Zimbabwe as it will be the first ever Youth Township as all these stands will be given to youths, no one else."On Monday (tomorrow) I will instruct my Permanent Secretary to come here, meet Bulawayo Provincial Affairs Minister (Nomthandazo Eunice Moyo) and the directive will be served to the Bulawayo City Council. When this first phase is completed I will avail a further 900 hectares," said Minister Kasukuwere.He said the youths will not pay for the planning and drawing process as that would be done free of charge by his ministry.Minister of Macro-Economic Planning and Investment Promotion, Dr Obert Mpofu also promised the Bulawayo youths that he will be availing land for them to have homesteads in Umguza."Most of you might think that all this is a gimmick but I must assure you that what Minister Kasukuwere said and what I just said is the truth, we want to show people out there that we are indeed a party of action," said Dr Mpofu.Zanu-PF National Deputy Secretary for Youth Affairs, Kudzai Chipanga challenged the ministers saying youths were now tired of living as lodgers."Come 2018 when we vote we want to be going to the various polling stations from our own homes, we don't want to go there as lodgers, we want our own properties and land," said Chipanga.
News / National
by Makomborero Mutimukulu
CONTROVERSIAL businessman Wicknell Chivayo promised to help Simon Mann hijack a plane that was supposed to extradite the convicted mercenary to Equatorial Guinea by supplying a gun.Mann makes the allegation and several others in the book "Cry Havoc".Mann, who was arrested in Harare in March 2009 while enroute to Equatorial Guinea where he had plans to overthrow President Obiang Nguema's government, claims that Chivayo also boasted of having access to an assortment of weapons.Mann and Chivayo were in the same prison cell at Chikurubi Maximum prison.Chivayo was serving time for fraud involving over two million rands.Mann claims that the fraudster turned businessman told him that his uncle was in charge of security at Harare International Airport."Months ago back in Chik (Chikurubi) Wicknell had promised: if he learns that I am being flown to EG (Equatorial Guinea) he will slip a 9mm onto the aircraft, in among the hand towels in the aft hand."He has the guns. He has the contacts. He knows all the security men airside at Harare International. His uncle is their boss," writes Mann on pages 297 and 298 of the book.Mann also appears to suggest that even during the time he was incarcerated, Chivayo had influence in some local newsrooms.He reveals that Chivayo had pledged to help him with the implementation of Operation Hurricane, a move that would have seen the publication of a tell all piece on the planned Equatorial Guinea coup in an unnamed newspaper."I've written a paper called Hurricane. It's a true account of the coup plot. Wicknell and I plan to place it in a Zim newspaper, by way of a pro-Mann propaganda."I have told Wicknell that Operation Hurricane must not go ahead without the nod from my sister Sarah back in London," reads a passage on page 250 of "Cry Havoc".On page 247, Mann reveals how Chivayo was uncomfortable sharing the prison cell with an inmate who "had gone homosexual.""I still need loads of fodya (cigarettes) to pay the staff my butler, Agrippa. I share him with Wicknell who insists on calling him our butler."Agrippa is a wonder He has gone homosexual but that bothers Wicknell more than it does me. That is why he is on our section. To keep him away from the boys," writes Mann.Interestingly, Chivayo claims that he is too busy to marry.
News / National
by Stephen Jakes
A commentator Allan Wenyika has said the government must never allow the distribution of condoms in prisons unless if that means t homosexuality is now legalised.Wenyika said President Robert Mugabe has a reputation for hating homosexuals, describing them as worse than pigs and dogs."Why then does his government allow the distribution of condoms to horny inmates in our prisons? Does he know where those inmates insert their privates after wearing the condoms, or if its done by mutual consent? Isn't it an acknowledgement by Mugabe that homosexuality is rampant among prisoners?" he said."The government should make prison life bearable for all inmates. The sexual abuse of inmates by fellow inmates, or by gay prison officers, must never be entertained, whether condoms are used or not."He said allowing the distribution, therefore, of condoms in prisons, for use by gay inmates, should only be done when homosexuality is legalized in Zimbabweans, and when prisoners are allowed to engage in sex among themselves."Anything else is hypocrisy by Mugabe and his government," he said.
News / National
by Stephen Jakes
Mthwakazi Republic Party has expressed some worries about the behaviour exhibited by the war vets during their meeting with President Robert Mugabe saying they showed lack of interests of the people among them.The war veterans met Mugabe last week in Harare."As a party we thought these so-called freedom fighters demanded the meeting to speak the issues of people's interests especially from Mthwakazi who contributed largely towards the gains of oppressive rule of Zanu PF. The war vets did expose that, apart from being self centered, they also fear and admire the brutal legacy of the dictator, whom for the past 35 years have brought nothing positive, but shame and loss of lives to the defenseless people of Mthwakazi," said MRP secretary general Hloniphani Ncube."MRP condemns with strongest terms possible, the issue of exhuming the remains of Rhodes which is the Mugabe crafted idea highlighted by him in his previous South African visit to beg for help, which was latter cemented by war vets yesterday."He said as a party they thought the war vets were going to represent the people on the issues of people's interests like demanding the government of Zimbabwe to take responsibility of the bodies of more than 25 000 civilians who were brutally killed by the Mugabe led government."We further expected them to question him on when is he going to improve the economy and the international relations. We expected them to question him about issues of accountability about monies collected on uncountless road blocks, revenue institutions, toll gates, minerals and proper management of the country," he said."The party expected the war vets to talk about the rule of law, human rights violations, democracy and development in broader context, rather than demanding not to pay taxes. We expected them to talk about the compensation of a number of other fellow comrades who were not recognised after dedicating their lives to the struggle. We expected them to tell Mugabe face to face that, his rule is far more brutal than the Smith government envied by many."Ncube said this clearly indicates that, they went to the war clueless thus why our people are struggling from poor political leadership."Exhuming the grave of Rhodes also translates to destroying the White people's legacy. While we acknowledge the negative effects of colonization, at the end of the day we must not mix that with racism in a fast globalising world. If we want to totally destroy the legacies of colonialism, why is there still POSA and AIPA among other atrocious policies," he said."Why didn't we destroy the cities and buildings constructed by our fellow White citizens who are also human beings like us Black people and some of them appreciated people of Mthwakazi, thus why the Matopo community defended the farm wanted by the CIO boss. In essence we cannot correct the past wrong doings by other malicious acts, instead, we must promote issues of national interests rather than retrogressive ideas."He said the acts of war veterans have exposed that, Mthwakazi is currently dominated by selfish leadership who went to war for personal enhancement."Thus why our MRP is a political party for revolutionaries preaching the true freedom that would encompass broader national development which respect issues of self determination and diversity, unlike the directionless policies of Zanu PF always changing."Ncube said it must be noted that, these war veterans are the ones who led to the implementation of the brutal Fast Track Land Reform Program which highly crippled the economy and all sectors of the economy, and the consequences are still felt up to this day."We advised our supporters to disassociate themselves with these directionless views and as a party we are strongly against the continued crippling of our culture and heritage," he said.
News / National
by Staff reporter
Zimbabwe artists have ganged up against Yvonne Chaka Chaka for ordering President Robert Mugabe to step-down, rest and write books.The artists have said Chaka Chaka should direct her energy to tell her president Jacob Zuma to deal with "his" issues about the Nkandla saga.On Thursday last week, Mugabe 92, said he is not dying anytime soon.Posted Bulawayo artiste Nkue Nkala on Facebook: "Yvonne Chaka Chaka wants our president to retire and write books? Hmmm. Can your beautiful President also deal with his issues and write more books #inkandla #Bathing #Concourt "We have our own way of dealing with things sisi #Sometimeswedontdeal #Sometimeswedo #wearezim South Africa-based upcoming actor and model, Oliver Keith Siamloboka also posted a hilarious rant directed at Chaka Chaka and those who support her:"Where does Yvonne Chaka Chaka get off saying President Mugabe should retire? Who is Yvonne Chaka Chaka? We cannot have a woman hailing from a country of Marikana, Gupta gate, Nkandla, Xenophobia, Crime and violence pontificating on Zimbabwe's internal affairs."Perhaps if you found a man Yvonne you would spend time with him. Stop using our President to help build your long ancient forgotten career. If you want to be an instrument for change, then be an instrument for change first in your country before opening your gob about your neighbours."Another posted: ". . . why was Yvonne Chaka Chaka not as vocal against Botha or speak against wars in Congo or poverty if they feel at ease speaking against Mugabe since the white men told them so they need to leave Zimbabweans alone?"
News / National
by Thobekile Zhou
President Robert Mugabe is due to be a grandfather soon after disclosing that her daughter - Bona is in the Far East and about to give birth.Mugabe, 92 revealed this to mourners on Saturday at the late Victoria Chitepo's funeral.Mugabe said her wife Grace is with their daughter Bona."She is about to give birth, it's a matter of days" he said.Bona is who married to Simba Chikore at a lavish wedding on March 1, 2014.Since their wedding, the issue of the pair having a child has been the subject of social media speculation for some time now.Bona's traditional marriage was held at Mugabe's Zvimba rural home in August 2013.
News / Religion
by Staff Reporter
FORMER Roman Catholic Bulawayo Diocese Archbishop Pius Ncube is set to bounce back in the Roman Catholic Bulawayo branch.A delegation from the diocese is pushing for him to be appointed an archbishop emeritus.An emeritus is an individual who after having retired is allowed to retain their title as an honour.Ncube resigned almost a decade ago after being embroiled in an acrimonious sex scandal with the late Rosemary Sibanda.The delegation which has been tasked with lobbying is reportedly led by Bulawayo businessman and educationist, Mr Clemence Kunzekweguta and has already requested a meeting with the Apostolic Nunciature of Zimbabwe, who is the Papal representative in the country, Archbishop Marek Zalewski.Kunzekweguta confirmed the move but did not divulge much information saying it would be premature to comment on the matter as they were yet to meet with the Apostolic Nunciature."As you might not know this is a very sensitive matter, besides we don't want to rush matters, as they say in SiNdebele; inhlwa ungayibamba ngekhanda ayisabambeki, iyabuyela emlindini (issues if rushed one ends up losing control)."What is happening right now is that we want to go to Harare first then we can have a possible way forward because right now if we rush matters the Archbishop or even Rome might not take it in the right spirit."We want to heal families. This year, the Catholic Church chose it to be a year to forgive each other as a family and a nation therefore we felt that this will be a perfect opportunity for us as a church to emulate this and prove to the world out there that we live what we preach," he said.
Opinion / Blogs
QN.
COMMENT
ANSWER
ZIMBABWEAN CONTEXT
Contacts
Relate how Amos condemnations apply in the society of Zimbabwe? (25)The above question requires one to have deep knowledge about the book of Amos specifically what he condemned in Israel.In other words the sins of the Israelites.Amos prophesied in the Northern Region "ISRAEL" in the days of the king Jeroboam (Amos 1:1 and Amos 7 : 10).Amos prophesied when Israel was strong economically, this,is the reason why scholars like Professor Roy suggest that Amos prophesied during the prosperous days of Israel.- During the prosperous days of Israel ,injustices was prevailing among the Israelites, Amos as a prophet fought for social justice and condemning the sins of the Israelites.- Amos in chapter 2 v 6 uses an oracle to deliver the message of doom to the Israelites because of their many sins "for three transgressions and for four".Amos condemned Israelites for selling the righteous for silver,the son and father sharing same wife, to mention but few only.- In Amos 4 v 1 ,Amos condemns the Samarian women for oppressing the poor.- In Amos 5 v 25,Amos condemn the Israelites for not offering the sacrifices in an expected way.- In Amos 6 v 1-14,Amos condemns the Israelites "the rich" for oppressing the poor,(read the above reference).- Amos condemned the Israelites for silencing the prophets ,this supported by Amos 2 v 12.Does Amos condemnations apply in Zimbabwean context, in other words what Amos condemned is it happening in Zimbabwe or it happened ,allow me to use Vernacular language for emphasis reasons (zvinoitika here Ku Zimbabwe, kuyenzakala yini eZimbabwe).- If yes ,prove it- If know ,Why?You will realize that Amos condemnations apply in Zimbabwe to a greater extent .The media will guide us in order to write valid information.Byo24.com has recorded so many people who lost their farmlands between the time of colonisation up to date .Losing the farmlands for so many reasons one of them being the status of an individual.- The point is that the poor are being oppressed by the rich,this is the same thing which Amos condemned.During the Smith Regime, the Zimbabweans were being oppressed ,this is the reason why they revolted ,thus, evidenced by 1st Chimurenga and 2rd Chimurenga .This is the reason why prophets like Samuel Mutendi and Ezekeil Guti criticised the oppression of the blacks by the whites- The point is oppression, thus ,what Amos condemned as well.The media has went on to record the prostitution which was prevailing in Victoria Falls in the year of 2003-2009.In other words this means that men were sharing the same maiden .In other words this means that there are high chances that the son and father ended up sharing the same maiden indirect .And this is what Amos exactly condemned. Therefore, one will be awarded to a certain degree for proving that Amos condemnations apply in Zimbabwean society.Earlier the writer highlighted that Amos condemned Israelites who silenced the prophets. In Zimbabwe silencing prophets was common during the liberation struggle were it is said that the Smith Regime silenced the likes of Ezekiel Guti and Samuel Mutendi for their messages which was anti-colonial ,leading them to be imprisoned. This means that Amos condemnation apply or once applied in Zimbabwean Society.It is not documented that Zimbabweans offer sacrifices ,hence, the reason is unknown but one will suggest that time frame contributes and the church in nowadays believe that offering sacrifices its no longer effective as they speak or communicate with God on daily basis. In other words this means that Amos condemnation in this case doesn't apply in the society of Zimbabwe.There are so many examples you can use ,some of Amos condemnations happens around you on daily basis- Media has helped us to a certain degree- Watch the national TV "Zbc " ,so many cases are being broadcasted on daily basis.In other words this means that there is no excuse for failing to execute the above question.You have been taught how to conclude ,I won't waste much time repeating the same thing ,even though it has been said that one understands better when different voice repeat the same thing.+263777896159 (Whatsapp)Witness Dingani (Facebook)
Opinion / Columnist
Tanaka Karanda a confessed technophile writes in his capacity as a concerned Zimbabwean who loves of all things on Economics/technology.
"Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest" Maya Angelou. The resonance of wise words by Maya Angelou allow for application for the situation that is and will continue to visit upon Nation of Zimbabwe until the full potential is realised.The world has changed dramatically over the last 3 years. However it seems that the motherland is still haunted by issues from the past. The question often asked is why we continue to let the status quo remain. Surely our people deserve a whole lot more. The future needs to be uncoupled from our distant past and our dogmatist approach to government. What was desired and imagined by our forefathers and those who died in the liberation of our country and what is prevailing are ghastly to contemplate. Surely the tears and the pain being endured by all deserve some relief.The country has fallen from the grace and pedestal as the emblem of great African countries to an archetype tin pot nation showing what not to do. Having analysed the words of the current Indigenisation Minister, one Patrick Zhuwao (a nephew and acolyte of the President), and the government's rhetoric and plans for the country to prosper through indigenisation of the nation's resources and businesses. I find that the policy is one of the most ludicrous policy ever thought of as it is arbitrary, selective and harebrained.For a country that touts its self to be one of leading academics and intellectuals this policy shows the depth and calibre of the drafters to be nothing short of criminal. There are many within the government who fail to realise the world does not revolve around the country, the world is a global marketplace. Any attempt to usher an arbitrary transfer of business shares to a partner who may or may not have any know how is called theft. Zimbabwe is trying to achieve some objective of being a big player in the world minerals market or tobacco market and then at the same time signal to potential investors that at some point expect to surrender a percentage of your company to unnamed partners.This incoherent and vindictive policy will not work as it is. To expect any serious investors to come and create jobs in such an environment is to live in a parallel delusional world that has no part in this tech driven world. The Indigenisation policy is a "Ponzi" Scheme. By nature such schemes benefit the original scheme members. Notice the proponents of the policy are all failed business people, the erstwhile Minister Kasukuwere and current Patrick Zhuwao are failed business people and this grand ponzi scheme they want to foist on the nation will fail. Any right thinking business person who invest in such an environment is either a conman like those who skimmed our diamonds or just fronts for the ruling elite.The current policies have led to continuing and deepening suffering of the nation characterised by high levels of poverty, untold deprivation and downright impoverishment. The collapse and crash of our national economy borne out by massive de-industrialisation, record unemployment can all be blamed on unplanned policies. There is no national savings to talk about, capital; foreign direct investment is nonexistent. The economic malaise will not be solved by countless trips to foreign lands or tinkering with an indigenisation policy.deprivation, denial and exclusion.b. The failure and collapse of our national economy borne out by extensive de-industrialisation, massive unemployment, general hunger and impoverishment.c. The absence of national savings, capital, foreign direct investment and liquidity all of which underpin the national economic malaise.There needs to be an acceptance that Zimbabwe is no longer a significant player in the world, if at all it as ever. It only features in world newspapers w hen something bad has happened or in the case of Cecil the lion. The whole world is facing declining investment climate and seasoned investors will only put their money where there is stability, coherent policies and political direction. Our glory and esteem is now only held in high regard (debatable) by the Chinese and the appeasers of our president. Breaking from the west poses risks and our development and makes no economic sense when we use their currencies as national tender. We distaste the west yet we are fixated with their music, culture, and dress; Mr Mugabe certainly dresses and behaves like some old English lord of the manor straight out of Downton Abbey. We drive German cars, love UK Rolls Royce's and chaff Dom Perignon in fact everything from the west, yet we sell our family silverware and souls to the Chinese. We blame our woes on the west; yet forget that there is the matter of US$10 billion we have not paid back.We need a lot of self introspection as a look at our crumbling infrastructure, decaying towns, unkempt streets, and pot-holed crater like roads and deteriorating standards. Yet we blame the West, sanctions, real and imagined enemies of the struggle for the general malaise and downturn. In a few weeks time it will be 36 years since Zimbabwe got its independence and this would be a great time to take stock of our lot. I think we need as a first step to acknowledge some truths about ourselves.We have rundown our economyWe have destroyed our educationWe have decimated our agricultureWe have failed to maintain even our roads, buildings and infrastructure.We have failed to run our Airline, Railways and public transport.Granted some needed a lot of foreign currency input, but many above just needed home-grown solutions. I have come across Zimbabweans in all parts of the globe, bankers on Wall Street, engineers with Canada's water companies, aeronautical engineers with Boeing, Airbus and doctors in London's top hospitals. What all these have in common is that they their skills and expertise is valued and not subject to policy made on the hoof and at public rallies. All were educated at in Zimbabwe and followed a western style education. Expecting them to follow an alien "juche" (political ideology of North Korea) style of thinking and working will never work. The devil you know is better, as the old adage says, and a common line when one is reflecting on decisions made, maybe the time is nigh to re-establish those links with the west.Please do not misunderstand me, looking east is not always the worst decision; as we have seen Japanese & Chinese influence on the African continent making positive contributions. It's just that Zimbabwe seems to be getting a raw deal on all fronts. Take the last three trips to the Far East the President met both the Chinese and Japanese leaders. From the latter he only got back $5million in grants, just chump change and even the cost of his entourage of 80 staffers with no finance and industry ministers gobbled nearly all the grant money. One can make judgements on the success of the numerous trips. We could use our new affinity to the east and look at how China has launched itself into a major significant nation. We can also learn from three eastern countries which had a similar GDP and level of development as ours Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea. All these countries do much business with the west and still keep their ethical values. We could learn a lot from them.Previously in 2014 I wrote an piece titled "Zimbabwe - An enemy within" and therein I alluded to the fact that "We need to join the information revolution that is going on all over the world. Technology is the new frontier that needs to be conquered and harnessed, and is the foremost driver of growth the world over and yet we as a nation cannot and will not embrace it". I am back with that theme 2 years on to encourage those in charge to try and embrace technology again. Let us forget those delusional thoughts to think we will bring industrial growth to Zimbabwe with factories and manufacturing from the current dilapidated, decaying infrastructure that we have failed to maintain and expect to make another $15BN for the government to mismanage.We must once again try and invest in new methods of banking and bringing tech to the masses in the services we offer to the nation from paying fines electronically to having an accountable digital currency/blockchain system so we can account for all finances, where it's going and where is it coming from and we can have trust in what is being done in the country by those in charge. If we had an electronic system form of paying ZRP fines, road taxes, customs duties and reducing them significantly there would be no reason for police/government departments to get bribes as all the fines are all processed digitally and money goes to the state.The decision makers should be held accountable through transparent information and tangible documents in the public domain. With blockchain technology all transactions are transparent and are there to see via mobile or pc anywhere in the world. Blockchain technology could bring in massive benefits for the economy and bring Zimbabweans into the world markets and also allow Zimbabwe to benefit from the world economy through smart contracts, autonomous and cryptographic transactions.The analogue paper work, with its inherent drawbacks of information being lost era is disappearing in the world why are we still stuck in this era. Everything is going digital and at a fraction of the cost of analogue paper, storage costs and loss of evidence that go with it. A digital world is the new world, we must be able to ensure those in all the corners of Zimbabwe can have all access and the modern benefits and not just Whatsapp.Recently the reserve bank has confirmed it wishes to move to the cashless economy which makes sense as currently they are unable to replenish the ATMs with US dollars plus an added advantage of being able to tax those transactions and payments throughout the cashless system. If all is properly managed it could revolutionaries and modernise banking system for the masses and will bring banking and other services to the remote areas in Zimbabwe. The digital world is the next frontier and if we encourage our people to embrace it then we can expect innovation and real indigenization of the country through our own initiatives not resource grabbing. Empowerment of the people will need to come from providing real opportunities through re-educating the masses and giving them hope through simple effective and accountable governance.Digital banking and blockchain technology allows for smart contracts including voting systems which give results within 5 minutes of poll closing, registering of deeds, share transfers, birth and death registration and in act all aspects of e-government can be transferred to the digital protocol. Recent innovative developments can also been used in the land registry. This initiative aims to record land title incorporating GPS marking of land complete with pictures and marking and document these on the block chain. Titled land can be used as bankable asset to borrow against. While the nay sayers may complain about safety and hacking, even paper documents are subject to forgery.But all must not lose hope as again Maya leaves words for reflection and ends the overture by saying "We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty". As a nation we need to fly away and soar BUT before we do so we have to morph through the ugly changes of a worm in the dry hard ground before emerging as a butterfly or Zimbabwe.
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Free WiFi will be available on all city buses and tour buses in Lhasa, capital of China's Tibet Autonomous Region, this year, a local operator said.
The service will be provided after a new traffic command center is put into use, Cao Zhiming, chairman of the city's public transport company, told Xinhua.
Passengers can also use a mobile app to check nearby bus stations and the arrival time of buses.
Lhasa authorities have pledged to spend 100 billion yuan (15.5 billion U.S. dollars) improving infrastructure, including roads, the airport and tourist destinations, in an attempt to double tourism revenue by 2020.
Tourism revenue in Lhasa has more than tripled in the past five years to an estimated 15.5 billion yuan last year, with tourist numbers rising an average of 23.3 percent each year.
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Flash
The upcoming meeting of Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers should not play up the South China Sea issue, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Saturday. The G7 foreign ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States is scheduled to convene on Sunday in Hiroshima, Japan.
Wang told visiting British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond that China hopes Britain will adopt an objective and fair stand in the issue, and not take sides.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) meets with visiting British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond in Beijing on April 9, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]
Wang also reiterated China's stance on Hong Kong. The Hong Kong affairs are China's internal affairs, he stressed, noting the Chinese central government will adhere to the principles of "one country, two systems" and "Hong Kong people governing Hong Kong" with a high degree of autonomy.
China appreciates the British side's remarks of dismissing calls for "Hong Kong independence," said Wang.
On China-UK relations, the minister called on the two sides to continue close high-level exchanges and enhance mutual understanding and trust so as to ensure a good beginning of the "golden era" of bilateral ties.
Chinese President Xi Jinping made a state visit to Britain in October. The two countries are implementing the results of the visit and expanding cooperation in various fields, according to Wang.
Wang and Hammond also exchanged views on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue and the political settlement process in Syria.
Flash
Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe concluded his four-day official visit to China on April 9. He shared the achievements of the visit and answered questions from Chinese and foreign journalists at a Beijing press conference on the last day of the trip.
Photo taken on April 9 shows Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe at a press conference held in Beijing. [Photo by Yang Jia/China.org.cn]
This is Wickremesinghe's seventh visit to China and first one since taking office in August last year.
"Sri Lanka and China often communicate on counter-piracy work, and China keeps a military presence in the India Ocean to help combat piracy," he said.
Colombo Port City Project resumes
The Sri Lanka government announced in March it will resume work on the Colombo Port City Project. The project was launched in September 2014, with an investment of $14 billion from China. It was suspended in September 2015 by Sri Lanka's new government after concerns about some aspects of the project.
"Sri Lanka has never canceled the Colombo Port City Project. The suspension was just reevaluation work to foreign projects by the new government," Wickremesinghe said. The Port City Project shares a common mission with China's "One Belt and One Road" initiative, he said, and stressed that Sri Lanka's plan for economic development highlights the Port City Project.
Wickremesinghe hopes to promote cooperation with Chinese companies in other major projects as well.
"Sri Lanka and China share similarities in the way of thinking in various fields such as economic restructuring. We are ready to seek more economic cooperation with China," he said.
YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty ImagesThis year, Matchbox Twenty marks the 20th anniversary of their debut album Yourself Or Someone Like You. Unfortunately, their guitarist won't be around to celebrate the milestone.
Over the weekend. Guitarist Kyle Cook wrote on Instagram that he's leaving the group, but the band itself will remain together. Cook said the reasons were due to "deterioration of communication, disagreements on when, where and how we tour and a general break down of democracy within the group."
He added, "I wish the best to Rob [Thomas], Paul [Doucette] and Brian [Yale] in their future endeavors and will always be thankful for the time we had together making music. I learned a tremendous amount from the guys and I know the albums will live on in the hearts of many, including my own." He'll continue as a member of the band Rivers and Rust, he noted, as well as as a songwriter, producer and guitarist.
Rob, Paul and Brian were in the Orlando, Florida band Tabitha's Secret before they recruited Kyle and another member, Adam Gaynor, and got a record contract as Matchbox Twenty.
n a lengthy Facebook post, Rob Thomas addressed Kyle's departure by writing of his bandmates, "It seems too much to ask of any one of them to not follow the path that makes them the happiest even if it doesnt fit with where others may want them to go."
He added, "For the past 20 years, the members of Matchbox Twenty have taken the opportunity every time the stars align to make some great music. We were and I believe continue to be the best pop/rock band in the world. Kyle is literally one of the greatest guitar players in popular music. Period. He is an amazing songwriter, singer, father and person. I want nothing but great things for him and his life and if he can better find that outside of the structure of this band then thats what we all want him to do."
Rob continued, "The specific future of Matchbox is on hold. And yes, its due to me still being out and promoting my solo album. Ive put so much hard work into it (even through some very difficult personal times) and I have to see it through. Please know that in my mind our playing together is delayed not canceled. Paul, [Brian] and I are forever members of Matchbox. And so is Kyle whether he is playing with us or not."
Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Flash
Paris attacks suspect Mohamed Abrini who was arrested Friday in Brussels has confessed to investigators that he is "the man in the hat" caught in the Brussels airport security cameras on March 22, Belgian federal prosecutor said Saturday.
Passengers walk to receive security check at Zaventem International Airport in Brussels, Belgium, April 3, 2016. [File Photo / Xinhua]
"He was confronted with the results of various expert assessments and admitted his presence," said the federal prosecutor in a statement. "The person told investigators that he had thrown his jacket in a trash can and then sold his hat."
Abrini was placed under arrest and charged with participation in a terrorist group and terrorist murders, the federal prosecutor said.
Abrini, wanted for suspected involvement in the November terrorist attacks in Paris, was arrested Friday along with five others in Brussels, by Belgian police.
Among the arrested is Osama Krayem, who as Brussels bombings probe has revealed is the second man who was present during the Maelbeek Metro Station attack.
Krayem was also present in the City 2 shop center of Brussels when buying bags that were used in the attacks, reported the Belgian broadcaster RTBF.
He was also placed under arrest and charged with participation in a terrorist group and terrorist murders.
Another two suspects, Herve B. M. and Bilal E. M., were charged with participation in a terrorist group and terrorist murders complicity.
Two more people, who were arrested along with Abrini were released after thorough hearing.
Flash
The U.S. Embassy in Ankara on Saturday issued a security warning to its citizens in Turkey, saying that there are threats to tourist sites in Istanbul and Antalya.
A suspicious bag is found at a tram station in Istanbul's Taksim Square, Turkey, on April 9, 2016. The U.S. Embassy in Ankara on Saturday issued a security warning to its citizens in Turkey, saying that there are threats to tourist sites in Istanbul and Antalya. [Photo / Xinhua]
The U.S. mission in Turkey would like to inform citizens that there are credible threats to tourist areas, in particular to public squares and docks in Istanbul and Antalya, the embassy said on its website.
It urged the citizens to be extremely cautious if they are in the vicinity of such areas and to monitor local media.
The embassy had issued a security warning to its citizens days before a bombing attack struck the Turkish capital city of Ankara in March.
Turkey's cultural capital Istanbul will host the 13th summit of Organization of Islamic Cooperation this month.
The 2016 Horticultural Expo will be held in touristic capital Antalya from April 23 to October 30.
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South Koreans who love watching old or new Chinese films regularly no longer have to find them in regular theaters as the Dongyang Arts Center has been opened to the public Friday. The theater will be featuring oil and new Chinese films daily and can seat up to 220 people. The hall has three screening rooms, with one used as a multipurpose cultural performance hall. It is still under negotiations if they will add an additional 162-seater viewing room.
The opening ceremony was attended by officials from both the Jongno Ward Office and the Chinese Cultural Center, both running the Chinese-films only theaters in Seoul's main theater and the one in Daehangno. For the theater's first screening, they showed 'Red Sorghum' which won Zhang Yimou the Golden Bear at the 1988 Berlin Film Festival and 'Meet Miss Anxiety' done by South Korean director Kwak Jae-yong. The screening was free of charge for all.
In the next coming days, the theater will release two films per month and screening will be free for weekdays and Mondays when the theater is closed for visitors. If viewers wish to watch new movies like 'Mermaid' or 'Monster Hunt', the tickets will range around 5,000 to 6,000 won per movie.
The organizers of the theater hopes that it would help Koreans understand Chinese culture and give them ways on watching these movies. Officials also hope that this would help Koreans quench their thirst for these films.
Aside from screening Chinese movies and translated Chinese films, the theater would also be open for lectures, events and cultural performances showing Chinese culture.
For China, Yang Lan became its
Many know Yang Lan as one of the most popular Chinese journalists and media entrepreneur, hailing her as "the Oprah of China" and she was listed in the 100 World's Most Powerful Women.
Yang Lan is very popular in China as she assisted in the founding of one of the country's largest private media outfits in the country. She also supports the creation of programming that would bolster the support on introducing Chinese culture and cultural exchanges in the country. Yang Lan: One-on-One is currently one of China's longest-running talk shows.
She also has a very huge online following with 50 million people following her accounts. Internet, she says, gives Chinese users a necessary voice that they can use to reach out on issues such as environmental protection, women's rights and public policy.
Yang Lan has also been assigned as one of the country's cross-cultural ambassadors, helping in the Beijing bid for the 2008 Olympic games. When she became the UNICEF's Ambassador, she worked on opening more opportunities for liberal arts education especially for children.
MADISON Wisconsins right-to-work law, championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker as he was mounting his run for president, was struck down Friday as violating the state constitution.
Attorney General Brad Schimel, also a Republican, promised to appeal the decision and said he was confident it would not stand, noting that no similar law has been struck down in any other state. Schimel has not decided whether to seek an immediate suspension of the ruling while the appeal is pending, spokesman Johnny Koremenos said.
We are confident Wisconsins freedom-to-work law is constitutional and will ultimately be upheld, Walker wrote on Twitter.
Three unions filed the lawsuit last year shortly after Walker signed the bill into law. Right-to-work laws prohibit businesses and unions from reaching agreements that require all workers, not just union members, to pay union dues. Twenty-five other states have such laws.
The unions argued that Wisconsins law was an unconstitutional seizure of union property since unions now must extend benefits to workers who dont pay dues. Dane County Circuit Judge William Foust agreed.
He said the law amounts to the government taking union funds without compensation since under the law unions must represent people who dont pay dues. That presents an existential threat to unions, Foust wrote.
While (union) losses today could be characterized by some as minor, they are not isolated and the impact of (the law) over time is threatening to the unions very economic viability, he wrote.
Foust noted that no other state court had struck down a right-to-work law on those grounds, but said he wasnt obligated to follow other states.
Republicans who backed the law dismissed the ruling, saying it will be reversed.
Once again, a liberal Dane County judge is trying to legislate from the bench, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said in a statement. No one should be forced to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment.
The laws Democratic supporters hailed the decision as a victory for the middle class and working families.
The extreme right-wing Republican agenda has been incredibly harmful to working people and businesses in Wisconsin, said Democratic Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca.
Three unions Machinists Local Lodge 1061 in Milwaukee, the Wisconsin AFL-CIO chapter and United Steelworkers District 2 in Menasha brought the lawsuit. Erin Mediros, an attorney representing all three unions, didnt immediately respond to a voicemail Friday.
Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, said the ruling was a needed check on Scott Walkers attacks on working families.
Right to work has always been unjust, now its proven unconstitutional, he said.
Supporters of right-to-work laws say they give workers the freedom to choose whether to join a union. Opponents say the laws weaken unions by depriving them of the dues from workers who choose not to pay them, resulting in lower wages and fewer employee rights. They also say the Republican-backed law is intended to undermine unions political power because unions tend to vote Democrat.
In 2014 the Indiana Supreme Court rejected two nearly identical challenges to that states right-to-work law. Those lawsuits alleged that the law unconstitutionally required unions to provide services to nonunion workers without compensation.
The Wisconsin attorney general argued the law doesnt take anything from the unions since it technically doesnt remove any money currently in their accounts.
Walker launched his run for president just months after signing the law, and frequently mentioned it while campaigning. Months after taking office in 2011, Walker also signed a law that effectively ended collective bargaining for public sector workers.